Seven Deadly Drabbles
by kmfrank
Summary: A collection of half-started ideas, some of which could have been developed into stories but never were; some of which were just intended to be short romps in Potterland. I decided to post them to give you a glimpse of what gets the axe on the chopping block. Or maybe to see why it takes so long to update the other stories...
1. Harry Potter and the Name of the What?

**A/N:** This story draws inspiration from _The Name of the Wind_. The magical society I had in mind was a bit more complex than J.K. Rowling's – it had several magical schools in Britain alone, though only Hogwarts students took their N.E.W.T.s, so this gave them a bit of prestige above their plebian peers. Naming, as in _Name of the Wind_, is only studied by the oldest students.

_**Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_Harry Potter and The Name of the What?_

Harry Potter of Number Four, Privet Drive was having a rare day. While he might still be dressed in oversized second-hand clothes, his cousin was dressed in an even more ridiculous outfit on their way to their last day of primary school. Dudley, who teased him mercilessly every day, was finally receiving his comeuppance.

"Oh Dudley, you look so _smashing_ in your new Smeltings uniform. Did you know daddy used to go there?" Harry sang out in a sing-song voice as he, his tubby cousin, and Piers Polkiss, Dudley's best friend, all walked to school together. Harry _never_ got to make fun of his cousin, but today was like a gift - a dream come true.

"Piss off, Potter," Dudley said between clenched teeth. Piers' eyes darted between Dudley and Harry, dressed in slightly oversized clothes from an Oxfam charity shop, before he suppressed a grin.

"You look like a total ponce!" At this, Piers finally did snigger. Harry turned on him, then. "And you'll have to wear it too, Piers, when you get to Smeltings!" Harry roared with laughter as Piers promptly shut up.

"Shut up!" Dudley demanded petulantly. Aunt Petunia had made Dudley wear his new Smeltings uniform to his last day of school at St. Grogory's. Harry thought it made his cousin look even more ridiculous than usual - it consisted of a maroon jacket with tails and orange knickerbockers, along with a straw hat that Uncle Vernon fondly called a "boater". He told Dudley to be sure to take a sailing class, which was a great place to meet 'the right sort'.

Harry had rolled his eyes, and Vernon had told Dudley to rap him with his Smeltings stick; Dudley happily complied.

Aunt Petunia had, of course, forbidden Dudley to bring his Smeltings stick to St. Grogory's, which caused him to throw a tantrum. He'd been written up a dozen times for bad behavior, and it wasn't like Aunt Petunia was an idiot.

They finally made it to school - Dudley had made a pretense of chasing Harry, but Harry was half the size of him, so the chase only lasted for a hundred feet before Dudley got tired and gave it up as a bad job and they continued walking, Harry just out of reach.

"Dudley what are you wearing?!" Another of Dudley's friends exclaimed with disbelief when they finally arrived at primary school. Duncan, Gordon, and Malcolm were all dumb and big. Dudley was dumber and bigger than any of them, and meaner too - they took directions from him.

"It's his new uniform for the posh secondary school he and Piers are attending!" Harry crowed with delight, taking revenge for all the verbal torments Dudley had inflicted on him over the years. Dudley glared at him and balled up his fists, which Harry ignored. "Aunt Petunia was _so proud_ of her ickle Diddykins all growed up that he just had to wear it to impress everyone here!"

They had drawn a crowd in the courtyard, now. At least fifteen kids, all of them knew Dudley's reputation for bullying. Many of them were talking about the ridiculous outfit of Dudley's, and the rest were watching carefully as he rounded on Harry.

While he'd beaten up nearly everyone in the class - besides his friends - he'd always left his cousin alone before, contenting himself to teasing him mercilessly; at least for the past few years. Aunt Petunia had told him to, and the one time he hadn't...

Still, no one really liked Harry. He was a bit of a loner, an unusual kid, who always wore clothes that weren't like everyone else's and always seemed to stare at odd things for a bit too long. Not the kind of things that normal kids did. Plus, he was Dudley's cousin, and Dudley was a jerk.

There were also odd things that happened around Harry Potter. Not many, perhaps two or three a year. His teacher's hair would turn blue after she'd yell at him for his sloppy, windswept hair. The windowpanes in doors would crack when he closed them, and two years ago he disappeared for hours, and then was found on top of the roof of the school - that was the year Dudley stopped beating him up. Probably for getting attention as a rival troublemaker.

"I thought I told you to shut up, Potter!" Dudley said, fuming as he loomed over his cousin.

"I think you forgot your Smeltings stick at home, Dudley," Harry said with a grin, not thinking his cousin would really hit him. "Make me."

Dudley threw a punch and put all his weight behind it, right at Harry's nose.

He had a lot of weight to put behind a punch, for an eleven year old. Harry, on the other hand, was lanky and thin. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

All the kids watching winced and went "ooh" at nearly the same time.

A few moments passed while Harry was on the ground, then every window in the school shattered. Harry looked up, betrayal on his face as blood flowed freely down his chin and screamed, a word coming from his throat that was raw and incomprehensible.

It was Dudley who was thrown this time, as well as everyone else in the crowd. It was as though a tornado had formed - they were all suddenly slammed roughly against the walls of the school surrounding the courtyard.

Only Harry was untouched by the gale winds, on his knees in the center as he seemed to watch what was happening with something of disbelief on his shocked face, then he slowly stood, unaffected by the whipping winds around him.

A series of '_CRACK_' noises sounded, followed by shouts of alarm. Harry watched the patterns of the wind move around the newly arrived visitors; they wore robes in a variety of colors, mostly dark or muted colors, and the gale-force winds whipped them around in interesting patterns as the men tried to resist.

"Stun him!" Harry could barely make out one man's voice over the sound of the wind around him. The last thing he saw was the look of terror on his cousin's face before a flash of red light, and then darkness.

"I expected it to be years yet. Lily didn't leave until after she was thirteen." Harry distantly heard Aunt Petunia's nasally voice as he woke up in a puddle of drool, as groggy as he'd ever been.

His nose felt odd, crooked, and his throat was raw and sorer than it had ever been, like Dudley had complained about before he had to get his tonsils taken out. Harry, who could count on one hand the number of days he'd been sick, massaged his throat as he struggled to open his eyes.

They too felt heavy and strange - he was definitely sick, and feeling all sorts of wrong.

"Harry will be the youngest student in nearly fifty years, when he starts in September. The display that was witnessed this morning...it took a team of Obliviators the rest of the day to sort things out at the school. And that was after they called in Professor Dumbledore himself to calm the winds. And since it's Harry Potter! The _Daily Prophet _is already having a field day, I don't mind telling you." Came another voice Harry didn't recognize, conversing with Aunt Petunia; it had a slight scottish lilt to it.

"Your newspaper?" Aunt Petunia clarified. "I don't understand, why would they write articles about such a terrible thing? I saw both the boys, it was dreadful!"

"Yes, well, you know the press. Either way, Mr. Potter is no longer unconscious, and I believe introductions are in order." A moment later, Harry sat up ramrod straight on the couch - Number Four Privet Drive had the strangest visitor to have ever graced its doorstep.

He knew his eyes were as wide as an owls as he took in the strange sight, and he couldn't help but have a laugh escape his mouth as he glanced unbelievingly at Aunt Petunia, who had a pained expression on her face.

Aunt Petunia allowed no nonsense in her household. She did not allow Harry or Dudley to watch nonsense television or movies with fantastical things in them lest the boys get "unnatural ideas" (cartoons were a grudging exception, since obviously they couldn't be real). Harry had always thought Aunt Petunia just had a strict religious upbringing - he'd heard that from one of the neighbors - that didn't allow for such things.

But his mind whirled a thousand thoughts a minute as so many different thoughts coalesced and processed. A dozen "accidents" - things for which he had no explanation, suddenly made sense. The expanding cupboard under the stairs that eventually became his sizable and comfortable room, since he liked the spiders under there when he was so young he almost didn't remember (which caused Vernon no end of grumbling); Mrs. Luddington's shockingly blue hair after she mistreated him, which no dye would cover up; the fortune in windows that the Dursleys and their neighbors needed to replace from cracks whenever Harry got upset; that time he ended up on the roof.

Today, the unexplainable tornado after Dudley hit him. It all made a strange sense, because there was a storybook witch standing in the parlor of Privet Drive.

Harry opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, considering what to say.

"Hello Mr. Potter," the witch greeted, inclining her head formally.

"Hello ma'am." He replied politely. "I like your...um...robe." He said lamely. He saw her smile.

"Thank you. It is the traditional attire of a witch, along with the hat, which is traditionally removed indoors - I wanted to give you the full impression." She took off her black pointed hat at this, setting it on the parlor table.

"Mrs. Dursley, might we all sit down? We have quite the conversation ahead of us." The witch said cordially.

"Of course. Perhaps some tea?" Petunia suggested meekly; Harry privately wondered if witches took frog eyes in their tea. It was likely.

The witch smiled and pulled a stick from the sleeve of her robe. A wand! With a twist and snap above the table, a tea service of fine bone china appeared out of thin air. Milk and sugar were in two bowls, and another empty plate was quickly filled with scones. Two tight circular motions above the teapot and steam began to arise from it.

"Wicked." Harry said with a grin. Aunt Petunia looked as though she would drink the tea and promptly vomit it up once the witch left.

"Of course." The witch replied simply. "Now while we let that steep, Harry, I am Professor Minerva McGonagall. I teach at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, to which you have recently been accepted as a First Year student."

She paused as though expecting some kind of reaction. Harry politely said, "Pleased to meet you, Professor. I would love to hear more about, erm, Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts is the oldest and finest school for magic in all of the United Kingdom, and amongst the best in all of Europe." Harry tried to look suitably impressed. "While there you will progress from Novice Warlock to O.W.L.-Candidate to - if you are judged suitable, which by your display today you certainly could be - N.E.W.T.-Candidate. Hogwarts is the only school in all of the United Kingdom that administers N.E.W.T.S. - those are very advanced wizard tests - which is why we are so highly regarded, Harry." She seemed very proud of this fact.

"So, if there are other schools, then there must be loads of witches and wizards around!" Harry said excitedly.

"Well, there are certainly many more Muggles than there are magical folk, but there are a goodly number of us, yes. We mostly keep hidden, and live separately from Muggles." Harry nodded.

"But you knew, Aunt Petunia." His gaze was almost accusatory. All of the odd happenings, and she had never told him. Allowed him to dream up all kinds of things, but never told him the truth.

"Of course I did. It was the same way with Lily." Aunt Petunia almost never spoke his mother's name. "The windows, especially. She had a devil of temper - thankfully you never have or we'd be in the poorhouse. My father ended up leaving Lily's bedroom window broken, after she was around 11, it started cracking every other week if he replaced it." She sniffed haughtily and turned her nose up, accepting a cup of tea from Professor McGonagall.

"It is a sign of a child's uncontrolled magic that accidents of that sort happen at times of extreme emotion, Harry. They stop happening once you begin at Hogwarts. That said, all of the school's windows are charmed unbreakable, so even your impressive outburst would have little effect." She gave him a smile as he grinned.

"Did magic fix my nose?! I figured it'd still be bleeding from when Dudley punched me!" Harry exclaimed, remembering the events from earlier. Professor McGonagall arched an eyebrow in disapproval.

"Yes, one of the responders to the scene took it upon himself to repair your nose. The bleeding was healed immediately but...well unfortunately you have a crooked nose, now. Anyone with any _real_ skill at Healing magic would have been able to take care of that, too." Professor McGonagall conjured a silver hand mirror with a casual wave of her wand, and Harry held it up to examine his new nose, poking it a few times. Definitely crooked to the right, and maybe a little more squashed than it had been.

"Cool." He said in the typical response of a young boy to such an injury.

"Quite, Mr. Potter. Now as we were discussing, Hogwarts." The Professor continued. "You will be one of the younger students, as magic often matures a year or two later. Nonetheless, in extreme cases it is not unheard of for First Years to start at your age. There will be another young girl starting who is eleven, in fact, though she turns twelve in September."

The Professor pulled out a scroll from her purse; the purse was dainty, but the scroll was long and bulky - her purse must have been magic too, to fit it!

"Here is your acceptance scroll, Harry. There are several rolls of parchment detailing everything you'll need for Hogwarts. That's just the official document, of course - most families like to keep it framed around the house." Professor McGonagall pulled out a letter from her purse, sealed with red wax. It too was thick yellow parchment, Harry had only seen something like it on a wedding invitation. "This is an identical copy for us to take around shopping for your school supplies."

She handed Petunia the official scroll as though she expected her to frame it right there. When she didn't, the Professor apologized and promptly waved her wand at the parchment, which turned into an impressive display, over four feet wide, with the entire unfurled parchment in its glorious entirety out there for the world to see. It also included a silver Hogwarts crest, a four part crest with a lion, raven, badger, and serpent - completely brilliant.

"_Repello Muggletum separo _Dursleys," Professor McGonagall said with a lazy wave of her wand. She flicked her wand at Petunia and the giant display case floated into her arm. "There you are, dear. Any Muggles besides yourselves will see some sort of impressive display of an acceptance letter to Eton for Harry, and a collection of paraphernalia. Only wizards and squibs will see that it's for Hogwarts."

"Now, Harry, you have been called off your last day of school for a reason; I am taking you shopping for everything you'll need for your first year at Hogwarts. You'll see the list in that letter - take a moment and read it, your Aunt and I should finish our discussion before I escort you to Diagon Alley for shopping." Professor McGonagall said with a smile. Petunia smiled back at her - waspishly, if Harry had to say. She no doubt disliked the way this witch marched into Number Four and started bossing Petunia around.

Aunt Petunia set down the display of Harry's Hogwarts acceptance, but Professor McGonagall happily made space on the wall, taking down some pictures of Dudley and making the large display a centerpiece of the transition between the dining room and parlor. She stuck it up with magic, and Harry doubted Aunt Petunia would be able to get it down without removing the whole wall; it was even odds whether the wall would be there by the end of the summer, in Harry's opinion.

While the Professor left the room with his aunt, Harry carefully broke the fancy seal on his letter and pulled out the gorgeous parchment with its fine emerald lettering.

_Master Harry J. Potter_

_Number Four, Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging_

_Surrey_

One the inside, the same elegant handwritten emerald ink, as though it were written from a fountain pen - uncle Vernon kept one in his drawer, a company reward for selling a load of drills one year - continued.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Armando Dippet_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc.)_

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_On behalf of the Hogwarts Board of Regents, in partnership with the Board of Governors and the Admissions Directorate of the Department of Magical Education at the Ministry of Magic, it is with great pleasure that we announce your acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins September 1. We await your owl no later than July 31._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_**Deputy Headmistress**_

As exciting as the revelation of getting into the school was, Harry almost immediately turned the page to the list of school supplies.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_First Years will require:_

_Uniform:_

_ - Three (3) plain black work robes (open style)_

_ - Three (3) or more sets of winter under-robes_

_ - Two (2) or more sets of summer under-robes_

_ - Two (2) or more casual robes_

_ - Two (2) or more lounge robes for bed_

_- One (1) pointed hat (black) for formal occasions_

_ - One (1) pair of protective gloves (Dragon Hide or similar)_

_ - One (1) winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)_

_ - One (1) or more pairs black leather boots (silver fastenings); no dragon hide_

_Equipment:_

_ - Wand or other implement (fitted)_

_ - Cauldron (Pewter, standard size 2)_

_ - One (1) set glass or crystal phials_

_ - One (1) telescope_

_ - One (1) brass scales_

_ - One (1) set Hogwarts Warlock Candidate Potions Kit_

_Course Books:_

_ - The Warlock's Spell Compendium_ by Miranda Goshawk

_- A History of Magic, From Merlin to War That Shook The Veil_ by Bathilda Bagshot

- _Magical Theory_ by Adalbert Waffling

-_ A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration _by Emeric Switch

- _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ by Phyllida Spore

- _Magical Drafts and Potions_ by Arsenius Jigger

- _Magical Implements and Foci_ by Gerbold Ollivander

- _The Next Six Languages You'll Learn_ by Abasi Laurenzoo

- _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ by Newt Scamander

-_ An Introduction to Magical Defense_ by Quirinius Quirrell

- _A Magical Guide To The GCSEs_ by Charity Burbage

_- Living Within Muggle Society_ by Charity Burbage

- _Unraveling The Sky Above Us_ by Titania Cosmos

Harry tried not to be astounded at the number of books on the list. If he had to take a class for each of those books, he couldn't imagine how he'd fit them all in the day!

He folded the list of supplies up again, and took the acceptance letter, rushing to his room under the stairs. Opening the door revealed not a cupboard, as everyone expects under the stairs, but a room every inch as big as Dudley's - complete with his cousin's discarded toys, and second-hand furniture, even two bookshelves. Dudley _hated_ books, so every book on them was totally unread when Harry got them.

Harry hung his acceptance letter into the wall with a thumb tack, hoping the spiders that lived there wouldn't mind too much; he'd heard, and believed, that his room used to be a cupboard once because there were way more spiders that lived here than anywhere else in the house. But if they lived in this room first then it wasn't very sporting of Harry to kick them out or kill them off.

"Mister Potter? _Is your room a cupboard under the stairs_?!" Professor McGonagall questioned angrily, her voice raised until she peeked her head in and saw Harry standing upright, smiling back at her in his spacious room.

"Er, I wouldn't call it a cupboard, exactly, Professor." Harry stepped out, but Professor McGonagall had whirled on Aunt Petunia, who was white as a ghost, looking between the door under the stairs and the angry professor, who had whipped her wand out.

"Why," she questioned slowly, her scottish brogue became more pronounced, "is Harry Potter living under the stairs?"

Harry looked at the witch like she was mad. "Professor, my room is huge - what does it matter if it's under the stairs?" Just when he learned that he was magic, it turned out that all witches get insulted at the slightest things - being magic was more work than he thought, it seemed.

"Vernon!" Aunt Petunia started somewhat frantically. "Vernon thought the accidents would stop. That Harry could make them stop. I wasn't home when he did it! And when I got home, the room was bigger, and Harry liked the spiders, he said they were his friends and he wanted to stay there! And then a year later the cupboard was as big as Dudley's room and he's never complained since, so he hasn't moved out."

Harry's mouth dropped at the revelation.

"Vernon threw me in a cupboard when I was a toddler?!" He practically screamed. Petunia looked as though he had struck her. His thoughts whirled and his accusations grew more livid. "How could you have let him do that to me? Where were you? _You let me stay there because the spiders were my only friends?!_"

Harry's voice made an undignified squeak from screaming, so Professor McGonagall took over.

"You should count yourself very lucky, _Petunia Dursley_." When the Professor said his aunt's name, it was just like the courtyard earlier - a weight seemed to settle around the room, as though the whole world was watching to see what the Professor would do next. The tension vanished just as suddenly, so quickly Harry wasn't even sure it was there at all.

"If it had been one of many other witches who found Harry Potter treated in such a way...well, you would be a stain on your floor right now. I am led to believe Harry needs your home as a place to stay for the next few years, but should that change, I might just let your treatment of Harry slip to certain wizards who hold a low opinion of Muggles." There was ice in her voice when she said it, and Harry fought the urge to gulp. Magic people could be dead scary.

"You have your list of school equipment and books, Harry?" She said tightly, turning on her heel to face him. He nodded vigorously in response, not trusting his voice.

"Excellent. We'll be off, then. We'll be at least a few hours in London, Mrs. Dursley." Harry's ears perked up a bit at that - he hadn't been to London yet this year, Dudley's trip to get his Smeltings uniform was "something special" so Vernon hadn't wanted him along. Instead he'd stayed home and played with Dudley's toys while old Mrs. Figg watched him.

Together, Harry and Professor McGonagall marched out of Number Four; Harry was sure it would be the talk of the neighborhood, him going off with a strangely dressed old woman. The neighbors loved to gossip, though usually it was Aunt Petunia spreading it.

They walked together for in silence for two blocks, along Privet Drive past Wisteria Walk all the way to Magnolia Crescent, and then cut over to Vauxhall Road, the major road. The entire way, Professor McGonagall seemed deep in thought.

"Harry," she finally said. "I must tell you, before we get on our way to London. You are, perhaps, quite well known in our world." Harry stared at her, the look on his face revealing that he was rapidly concluding that this entire magic business induced some kind of insanity.

"You're saying I'm famous?" He asked skeptically.

"Of a sort - and yet not exactly. It's difficult to say without telling you the entire story. Years ago, there was a young wizard who rose through the ranks of Hogwarts. He started younger than almost anyone had, and rose more quickly than anyone in living history until he was widely recognized as one of the most promising young wizards of the generation. He wrote books about his insights into magic, he was widely consulted for his ideas about the latest advances of magic. He learned the secrets I can't even tell you about yet faster than anyone believed possible. He became, in short, a political and magical powerhouse that rivalled anyone alive."

"And then the attacks started." She looked far away. "At first it was just Muggles, and everyone thought 'maybe it's a Muggle serial killer doing it.' But then he started in on the Muggleborn Warlocks. And the attacks grew bolder. Everyone grew afraid of his power, never knowing if they'd be next, if they spoke out against him." Harry admittedly grew a bit frightened at the picture she painted, even though he knew she left out details about how horrible it really must have been; he could read between the lines of the haunted look in her eye.

"And just when we thought things were about to come apart, when You-Know-Who had the entire Ministry under his control, he attacked one last family, he tried to kill one final little boy. You." Harry tried to tell her that she was wrong, that she'd gotten the wrong Harry Potter - _his_ parents were killed in a car crash, Aunt Petunia had _told_ him so once, although she didn't like to talk about it.

But he remembered. Just a bit. Flashes, images. Green light, and a high-pitched laugh. That's all. Even thinking on it disgusted him as he tried to piece it together - he wanted to know his parents, wanted to love them, but he didn't know them at all.

"He attacked your family that night, Harry, and ended up killing both of your parents. But something - perhaps your parents killed him before he could kill you, perhaps there was a ritual Lily cast on you, as Professor Dumbledore has insisted - _something_ got the better of him that night and he was killed instead of you, giving you your unique scar." Harry brushed the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead unconsciously. He knew he couldn't have gotten it in a car crash...

"So no, you are not famous like Gilderoy Lockhart, or the Weird Sisters -" Harry had no idea who these people were, "But you are a highly regarded person. When you get older, you may find doors open for you in notable positions of power based on your name, that sort of thing. I'm not certain it would aid you in a popularity contest like the Minister for Magic, but should you earn a place on the Wizengamot and desire the position of Chief Wizard, I daresay any opponents will likely lay down their claim in favor of you. That sort of thing." Professor McGonagall said primly, as though this was something to be proud of.

"I didn't know my parents, Professor," Harry said dejectedly. "But I doubt they would have offed themselves so I could be Head Wizard on a Wizard Gamut." Harry intentionally mispronounced the words to offend the witch.

"The Wizengamot is a part of our government, Harry, which functions in a similar capacity to both the Muggle court system and Parliament. You'll learn about it this year. And I knew both of your parents quite well - they would have proudly given their lives so that their beloved son could live in a world free from the terror of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Anything else is irrelevant. Now enough with the teenage angst - you're too young for it and I assure you I put up with more than enough of it as a teacher." Harry smiled despite himself and at the knowledge that Professor McGonagall knew his parents. Perhaps he could learn a thing or two about them.

"Now that you are aware of that, so that any staring and/or unusual recognition of who you are - that scar of yours is rather recognizable - we can head to London. We shall use the Knight Bus, the typical method of travel for Warlocks without a floo in their home. Once you get a wand, you may summon it any time; simply raise your wand - or any other implement or focus you might have - and call for it. _Knight Bus!_" She said in a raised voice.

Nothing happened for about two seconds, and then with the backfiring of a car's exhaust, what seemed to be the fabric of space itself folded apart and a brilliant purple, double-decker sightseeing bus erupted from the end of the block. It seemed to have done so in the middle of a left turn, so it sharply righted itself, nearly tipping and narrowly avoiding parked cars in lanes of traffic going both ways down Vauxhall Road.

Harry wasn't so sure about boarding, when it rear-ended the car in front of them, pushing it two meters, to park directly in front of he and Professor McGonagall before opening its doors.

A young man with freckles and untidy hair beneath a chauffeur's cap stepped off the bus and declared, "Hello mum, and welcome to the Knight Bus, transportation of choice for the stranded Warlock! My name is Stan Shunpike and I'll be your conductor for the evening. Where can I take you and the young lad?"

"Two tickets to London, on the Hogwarts account." Professor McGonagall said primly, taking the conductor's hand before stepping aboard.

"Absolutely. Good to see you again Professor McGonagall marm!" The conductor said with a smile and a wink at Harry. Harry climbed aboard and surveyed the inside, which was as odd as the outside.

The bus was like nothing he'd ever ridden. There were no real bus seats, instead the inside was lined with all sorts of different chairs - recliners, dining chairs, hard wooden chairs, a school desk, office chairs with rollers on the bottom, even a horse mounted on a spring, the type usually found on a playground.

Stan the conductor found Harry eyeing the various seating with incredulity and spoke up once he closed the doors. "Take any seat - whichever you think you'll find the most comfortable." In a whisper he added, "The recliners and office chairs are the most comfortable, but the office chairs tend to roll all around when we turn - it's loads of fun."

Harry had to shake his heads at how crazy and uninhibited all the wizards he met seemed to be - it was like a fantasy world where there were no adults! Except Professor McGonagall, of course.

"Harry!" Professor McGonagall called him over. She had taken a seat in a boring wooden chair. Of course. There were no office chairs next to her, but he at least was able to choose a cushy banquet hall chair.

"I have so many questions about Hogwarts, Professor!" Harry finally said excitedly once they had settled and the bus set off. Professor McGonagall smiled at him.

"Of course you do - the Dursleys never explained about magic, so I expect you'll be asking me questions all day. The speech I gave earlier covered the basic introduction, but feel free to inquire about anything else." She said. Harry pulled out his letter.

"What's a wand, and what's 'another implement'? We have loads of books but no class schedule, so which classes do we take and does each class really have its own book? That's a _ton_ of classes, way more than my primary school! And Hogwarts makes us buy lots of robes, do all wizards or warlocks wear robes or just the girls? I've never worn a robe before, though Uncle Vernon had a bathrobe at this nice hotel he took Aunt Petunia to for their anniversary once, he said. And why do you sometimes call people wizards and witches, and sometimes warlocks?" Harry said his train of thought in one breath. Professor McGonagall looked as though she regretted giving him permission to speak.

The Knight Bus stopped with a bang, and any chair without someone in it flew around, crashing over, then instantly righting itself and finding a proper place on the perimeter of the bus.

"Merlin, that _is_ a lot of questions!" The Professor said good-naturedly. "I'll answer the most important first. A warlock is the technical title for a magical person who has just begun his education, or who has completed the W.E.A.S.E.L. - a test administered by every magical school including Hogwarts. It is the lowest of the tests, and stands for Warlock Education And Standards for Everyday Living. With the completion of the W.E.A.S.E.L., a person is judged to be able to function as a member of society without fear of revealing us to Muggles, essentially. They get to live with as a warlock without 'having their wand snapped', is the colloquial term, or being banished and forced to live as a squib." She could tell that Harry looked somewhat alarmed at this.

"Oh don't worry, Harry. Hogwarts has never actually had anyone _fail_ their W.E.A.S.E.L! It does happen to a few students every year throughout Britain, though. Some people in the Ministry want to institute a remedial session, but as with all magical tests, once you're judged by your Professors as qualified to take the test, you take it and the results are binding. Now, a Wizard and a Witch are the technical male and female terms for those who have progressed beyond the level of the W.E.A.S.E.L., and taken the O.W.L. Technically O.W.L.-candidates, those who are studying for the O.W.L.s at Hogwarts - are still Warlocks. Everyone calls them Wizards though. Now being a Wizard grants you certain privileges in Britain. O.W.L.s will give you Citizenship, the right to vote for the next Minister of Magic. Enough of them will give you a spot on the Wizengamot, even. There are only two schools in Britain that grant O.W.L.s, so you can see why Hogwarts admission is so prestigious now, I think. The other is in Ireland, and they don't give N.E.W.T.s. Those are the tests beyond O.W.L.s, and if you earn them, you are called a Sorcerer. Very few take their N.E.W.T.s each year, and even from Hogwarts the failure rate is considerable." The Knight bus stopped again, interrupting her monologue as the seats rearranged themselves and jostled for placement.

"The Leaky Cauldron! Diagon Alley!" Stan at the front of the bus yelled out suddenly. Professor McGonagall raised both eyebrows as a signal to Harry and they both got up and made to leave the bus.

Harry tried to conceal his disappointment that the bus trip was already over and almost none of his questions were answered, and was able to do so when he saw that the trip to London, more than an hour with the best of traffic, had taken only a few minutes.

They had stepped out onto Charing Cross Road, and no one had noticed the strange bus careening into cars and through the street.

"Come along, Harry." Professor McGonagall broke him out of his amazed stare, and led him between two tall buildings into a dingy pug somehow squeezed in. There was no writing on the door, merely a faded sign with a cauldron on it.

Just like the bus, and his own room he supposed, the inside was far larger than he would have thought possible from the door that barely fit between the cracks of the buildings beside it. The Leaky Cauldron was a spacious and comfortable old kind of pub, with rows of booths that all had leather seats in pristine condition. The barstools were similarly conditioned leather, above brass that glistened as though newly polished. The bar itself was burnished walnut - a clean white rag wiped it down with no hand attached to it, and several bottles busily refilled patrons' tumblers.

It was a lively place, and most of the occupants wore smiles on their faces and greeted each other with a slap on the back. Some wore robes - of gray, of black, of ostentatious purple with moons that danced. Three fireplaces lined the wall to the left of where Harry entered, and every few moments one of them would flare green and someone would step out, covered in soot. They would calmly point their wand at themselves and a moment later they would be clean again. Some would stay for a drink, or to converse with old friends, and some would make their way immediately to the back of the pub.

It was his first magical place, and in seconds, Harry had fallen in love with it, taking it all in with a long stare. He may have only been a warlock for a day, but he knew this: Muggles couldn't hold a candle to magic, if this pub were any indication.

"Harry, let's go." Professor McGonagall reminded gently; Harry fought to keep the grin off his face as he surveyed the amazing place and took in the conversations. They walked past men reading the paper - the photographs and advertisements _moved_ like videos! - and he caught a few snippets of conversation as they brushed past a crowded gaggle on their way to the even more crowded back of the Leaky Cauldron.

"My Shawn is off to Derwent's this year. And my oldest will probably sit for his O.W.L.s at Crom's Hall. We're very excited, of course - he's taking a full load of classes! Be nice to have another wizard in the family!" A man said somewhat pompously. He was dressed in somewhat fancier robes than the men surrounding him, and wore a waistcoat of a type underneath that had eight gold chains that led to various pockets where Harry guessed he kept watches.

"Well my word." A voice rose up as they finally reached the back of the pub thanks to Professor McGonagall's rather aggressive maneuvering. The voice seemed to cut through the din of the pub; the noise didn't reduce in any way, but the man's voice - refined, almost sultry in a way - could be heard perfectly from across the room. It made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand up, but he couldn't say why. In the next second, the man was beside Harry.

"Bless my wand, it's Harry Potter." He spoke with a refined accent, but when Harry looked up he was surprised - he wasn't expecting a clean-shaven twenty-something with tanned skin and strong jaw; most of the wizards he'd seen weren't the traditional concept of handsome, but this man had it in spades. The only oddity was a tightly wrapped turban around his head, centered with a brilliant sapphire as big as Harry's fist.

"Quirinius. I wasn't expecting you here." Professor McGonagall said with surprise, inclining her head in greeting. He smiled in return, bowing slightly.

"I do still try to do the unexpected. A good first lesson for Magical Defense, Harry." He said with a wink. "But how rude of me - I am Quirinius Quirrell. I shall be one of your instructors this year. I expect my class shall be your favorite, no matter how much Minerva may try to woo you away from me." The usually stern McGonagall rolled her eyes, but allowed a small smile to grace her lips.

"We shall see, Quirinius." She said easily. "His father was one of the best Metamorphs I ever taught. James nearly mastered - and I mean mastered - three animal forms by the time he graduated Hogwarts. He could take the shape of nearly a dozen. If Harry takes after his father at all, I expect he'll quite enjoy my classes." Quirrell smiled appreciatively and seemed to look Harry up and down again, nodding firmly and giving him another wink.

"Well then, it seems we all expect great things from you, Mr. Potter! Enjoy your day with Professor McGonagall." Quirrell bid them both farewell and left, and the hairs on Harry's neck relaxed suddenly.

"Are you ready, Harry?" Professor McGonagall said, facing the back wall of the pub. Harry nodded, and she pulled her wand from the sleeve of her robe and tapped three particular bricks - they looked a bit more worn than the rest.

Before his eyes, the wall rearranged itself into an empty archway that revealed a brightly lit winding street.

"Welcome to the magical world, Mr. Potter. Welcome to Diagon Alley."

"Dragon liver, Thirteen Crowns an ounce! Mandrake blood - remove any blemish! Only 3 Crowns for an ounce. Newt eyes, 4 for a Royal!" A young man outside the apothecary yelled as Harry passed by.

Diagon Alley was laid out in a manner that made no sense at all - shops were built on top of each other, leaned over, and built staircases over the other stores' entrances as though fighting for prime real estate in a world where physics didn't matter. Everything was brightly colored, and the sun shone down brightly, even though Harry distinctly remembered the day being rather gray out on Charing Cross road.

A-frame signs for the stores peppered the Alley, and the brightly colored chalk danced around the sign, swirling into new messages or erupted into chalk fireworks to draw attention. Advertisements for new products or sales were brightly displayed in the store windows. Harry nearly gave himself whiplash, he whipped his head back and forth again and again at each shop. A shop that had stacks and stacks of cauldrons that overflowed out the door. A shop called Amanuensis Quills that had thousands of quills of all sorts of feather types, and inks in every shade imaginable, from every kind of creature or plant Harry had never heard of - and that was just what he saw from the window.

"Come along, Harry - we must go to Gringott's to get money before you get sidetracked by all the shops." Professor McGonagall said as she escorted him.

"I've never been on a shopping trip like this! Do all wizards use quills?" Harry inquired excitedly. Professor McGonagall frowned.

"Well of course. It isn't on the Hogwarts supply list, but that is why we send an instructor out with each of the halfblood students. We couldn't have them showing up with pens, they'd be a laughingstock." Harry frowned a bit at that, because he didn't really understand, but Professor McGonagall didn't explain any further.

Another shop, this one had two shops that had built over over it, one of them with a giant set of stairs nearly covering its entrance, had piles of brooms all around its exterior.

"_Magic brooms! Wicked!_" Harry exclaimed.

"_Later_, Harry. If you're anything like your father I expect we'll be making a trip there. But you haven't any money to spend, so first things first!" Professor McGonagall reminded sternly.

"Sorry, Professor. Bank first, then brooms." Harry agreed sheepishly, falling back in line as they rounded the dogleg bend in the Alley and he got his first view of Gringott's.

While the rest of the Alley wasn't shabby by any means - and as they got deeper, the shops naturally became more high-end - at the very end of the Alley was a palace that made everything Harry had ever seen look plain. Five storey pristine white pillars surrounded a rectangular building that looked to be vaguely Greek in design - highlighted by gold filigree on every possible surface.

The rest of the increasingly impressive stores in the Alley could no longer hold his attention, Harry focused on Gringott's. Above the pillars, a massive battle - detailed in gold filigree and obsidian on a white marble background - played out, where wizards fought all manner of creatures perpetually.

It was the perimeter of Gringott's on the ground that was, possibly, even more interesting.

Four guards stood at the entrance, standing at attention, two on either side of the massive gilded doorway. They carried gleaming silver polearms, cruelly barbed and curved like Harry had never seen, not even in museums in London on his school trips, and wore crisp black leather uniforms with embossed silver breastplates and legplates.

They weren't humans, though. They were perhaps five feet tall, squat, some of them as wide as they were tall, and burly. They had long arms that reached well past their knees, and ended in long, clawed fingers - two of them were wearing silver, clawed gauntlets that looked wickedly sharp. They all had mottled skin, ranging from tan to yellowish-green to grey, and long ears.

As Harry and Professor McGonagall approached the entrance, one of them spoke.

"Another young one." The guard had a drawl of a voice, and spoke with a stilted accent like a foreigner. Harry could see that each of his front teeth were pointed. When the guard saw him staring, he suddenly leaped forward and snapped his mouth at Harry, who jumped about a foot in the air, falling over himself.

The other guards chuckled and smiled. Harry blushed furiously and balled his fists, glaring up at the much larger creature. Harry couldn't stand bullies, they reminded him of his cousin Dudley.

"This one's got some balls, I think." The guard grinned dismissively shook his head. "Get inside, whelpling. You don't even have a wand to make trouble with."

Professor McGonagall had watched the entire scene with a bored look, never even making a motion to draw her wand. The guards leered at her when she passed, but if she noticed, then she paid them no mind.

Harry gave them all one last foul look before stepping inside Gringott's.

"Goblins, Harry." Professor McGonagall stooped down and said quietly into his ear. "The ones outside are a bit of a different breed than those in here, but they're all goblins. Fiercely independent, and they generally despise wizards. You'll learn all about them. Just do as I do, and ignore any rudeness." Her voice was quite stern, and Harry knew this tone meant "or else."

The inside of Gringott's was a long line of bank tellers, the counters matching the white marble floor. They were roped off by gold and red velvet ropes.

Each of the tellers looked a bit similar to the guards outside - they had the same crudely shaped face and ears, and mottled skin of varying shades, but these goblins were smaller. They were only about four feet tall, and skinnier as well - some were plump, but they ran the gamut like humans did. They all had long arms and spindly fingers ending in sharp claws.

They all, uniformly, wore finely tailored suits - they would have fit in at any of the finest Muggle banks, except that they weren't human.

**A/N:** That's all I have for this drabble. Enjoy the next!


	2. The Order of Extraordinary Gentlemen

**A/N:** In a world that has known peace since Grindelwald, a reborn Voldemort comes through the Veil and finds a virgin realm, ripe for the conquering. Who in this unknown world would dare to stand against him? Familiar faces and old enemies await, in a world unprepared for the Dark Lord.

_**The Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_The Order of Extraordinary Gentlemen_

"Crouch, this storm's been building all over London since she activated the portal, and I'm not willing to bet the two are unrelated. Now we've got storms inside every level of the Ministry that Maintenance can't clean up, and a dozen wizards and witches have been sent to St. Mungo's from lightning strikes? No, send everyone home. Evacuate the whole bloody place - we've no idea what we're dealing with here."

"Of course Minister." Senior Undersecretary Crouch replied smartly, a quill taking notes as he walked and a dozen paper aeroplanes taking off almost immediately, sending notifications off.

"Alastor!" The Minister called out warmly as they emerged into the largest room of the Department of Mysteries.

Alastor Moody was a roughly scarred wizard with a particularly cruel, jagged line running across his face, cutting across where his left eye used to be - it was replaced with an artificial glass eye that was clearly magical, spinning freely in it's socket.

"Aye, Minister. Things look to be coming to a head, here." Moody replied gruffly, in his typical no-nonsense fashion.

"Lightning strikes coming faster and faster - less than thirty seconds between them, now - and the bloody wind is so loud we're having to yell to each other, as you can see. Near as we can tell, with each lightning strike, the runes on the Veil are glowing brighter. It's building to something. I've got at least ten men here at all times, we're rotating Aurors, Unspeakables, and Hit-Wizards. I'd rather it was all Aurors, of course, but we don't have enough of 'em. Plus Croaker wants Unspeakables around to study the blasted thing. Bloody Granger's hardly left since she set the damn thing off." Moody finished.

Minister Riddle looked around at the four Unspeakables in the room waving their wands at spherical sensors of some kind he was unfamiliar with - they were filled with swirling light yellow gas.

"Yes, I understand that according to Unspeakable Granger, she did little more than finish translating the runes from ancient Sumerian when all this began occurring." Riddle yelled over the wind.

"That's correct, Minister!" One of the grey-cloaked Unspeakables said to him excitedly. "I'm Unspeakable Granger, sir - sorry about all of this. As I put in my first report -"

"Which I believe was around 10 feet of parchment." Riddle interjected sarcastically.

"That's correct, sir! After I finished translating and read the translation, the runes on the Veil lit up, the winds picked up as loud as they are now, and there was a lightning strike that seemed like it was right on the center of the Veil. Luckily I had raised a Shield Charm per standard protocol. The runes were glowing red, the wind had died down, but the weather outside London had turned to - well, you remember. And then it escalated to what it is now." Hermione said, her face hidden and shadowed behind the Unspeakable's cloak.

"Well I'm glad to have your expertise here now -" Riddle began, before cutting himself off suddenly when all of the yellow gaseous orbs floating around the room turned bright orange. Hermione noticed it too, then looked around the room at all of the other orbs, noticing that they all turned. Hermione drew her wand, pointing it at the Veil and began casting every protective enchantment she knew.

"Is there a problem, Unspeakable? What does the orange smoke mean?" Minister Riddle asked calmly. Moody did not keep calm, seeing what Hermione was doing and casting more protective enchantments around himself and the Minister rather more quickly than the Unspeakable.

"Orange means an unknown imminent threat is coming." Hermione said distractedly; Moody cursed loudly.

"Croaker! What is the hell does that mean, an unknown imminent threat?!" He questioned loudly over the even louder wind.

Riddle, not wasting time, transfigured the marble wall into a solid bunker of steel completely enveloping himself and several others around him, including Granger and Moody, with a convenient eye-slit to look at the Veil. Most of the others in the room, not nearly so talented, raised up smaller walls to crouch behind. Croaker created a bunker similar to Riddle's, but made out of the same material as the wall.

The lightning had picked up pace, and was striking every few seconds now. The wind was screaming like a hurricane - Moody had tried screaming something at Riddle, but it was no avail. Riddle was the only one who could communicate with everyone, with some spell that was like his voice whispering in everyone's ear, that for some reason they could hear despite the gale force winds.

There wasn't much he could say, except to keep calm, and that they were all in this together.

A final, blinding, absurdly loud CRACK of lightning that seemed to split the room in two, it was so powerful and nearby, and it was over. The wind was gone, the lightning strikes were over.

Tom Riddle held his breath for a tense moment before peeking out from behind his bunker.

A blue fire had swept through the room - it burned in such an unnatural way that some of the marble was still on fire; Tom wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he knew of several things that could similarly burn anything. He noted that those in the room who had huddled behind smaller barriers were thrown bodily and now unconscious. That left only a handful of the more than a dozen wizards and witches.

And, huddled in the fetal position in front of the charred rubble that was was all that remained of the Veil, he saw the creature. It was sickly pale and thin, and the blue fire around the room made its skin glow. The ridges of its back where a normal person would have vertebrae were too sharp; its head was too bulbous, and it had no hair.

It raised its head, then, and in the instant Tom met its red eyes, burning pools of opalescent hatred, set in a familiar but horribly corrupted face, he knew.

He knew exactly what this creature was.

The stunning realization that the creature was _him_ was almost too much to bear, he gagged and it was all he could do not to vomit. A cruel smirk emerged on what passed for a face on the creature.

_Hello brother_, the thing seemed to think at him with his mocking smirk. Voldemort - Tom knew him as intimately as he knew himself, now - raised a sickly pale arm with a familiar wand in hand and whipped around, conjuring a smoky set of black robes.

Tom burst out of his bunker with his wand drawn, bending the front of the barrier upwards with a thought.

"I'm Tom Riddle, the Minister for Magic," he declared, mostly for show for the rest of the wizards present - Tom believed Voldemort knew very well who he was.

"Go back through the Veil, and we won't be forced to end this unpleasantly." Tom's steely blue eyes met Voldemort's fiery red, and for several moments, neither moved. It was long enough for Alastor Moody and Hermione Granger to emerge from Tom's shelter, and for two Unspeakables and an Auror to emerge from Croaker's.

Tom regretted that.

"_Imperio_." Voldemort's voice was a raspy whisper, high and cruel and inhuman.

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

"_Stupefy!_"

Hermione's voice and Alastor Moody's rang out at the same time, and their spells impacted each other. They both dropped. The only sound afterward was Voldemort's raspy cackle.

"Mad-Eye Moody, using Stunning Spells! Oh, but this _is_ a fun place!" Tom let loose a flurry of spells, but Voldemort merely batted them away lazily with his wand. Then he woke up his first _Imperiused_ servant, who began harassing the others.

"I don't typically allow observers! Is that you, Rookwood, old friend?! _Imperio!_" Voldemort shouted with some glee in his voice.

"Black," Croaker called to the Auror who'd taken shelter under his bunker and was now easily fighting off two _Imperiused_ Unspeakables while Croaker slung spells at Voldemort with Riddle, "I really hope you can fight off the Imperius Curse." Croaker fell to a flash of light from Voldemort's wand but a moment later, leaving Tom alone to be harried by Voldemort's wand.

"Are you kidding? I'd never have gotten out from under dear old mum's thumb if I couldn't. Crazy bint used to curse me every morning - said it built character. She also married a cousin, so it just shows." Sirius said with a roguish smile on his face. With a flourish, he batted the second Unspeakable - he didn't know which one, it was impossible to keep those blighters apart - against the wall, and they crumpled; the other lie in a heap on the ground, having succumbed to a series of immobilizing and stunning spells.

Tom only barely managed to spare a glance to the Auror before neatly turning sideways out of the way of the Killing Curse, quickly conjuring up a tree branch behind him that burst into harsh green flames - harmlessly absorbing the flames, preventing Black from death. Tom batted away another curse from Voldemort and countered with two more spells of his own.

Voldemort almost contemptuously countered Tom's spells, and with hardly a thought, Black was writhing on the ground under the Cruciatus Curse, a cruel glint in the eye of Voldemort.

Silently, Tom finally landed a curse on Voldemort as he concentrated just a bit too hard on cursing Black with the Cruciatus, and bodily flung him across the room into the wall. Another spell bashed him into the wall, and a Blasting Curse detonated like a bomb, blowing a hole clear into another room of the Department of Mysteries. The powdery haze of smoke from the destroyed wall seemed to swirl sinisterly.

Tom breathed heavily and tugged on his robe smugly when - from behind him, of all places, he saw an ugly, twisting purple curse. He saw just enough of it to know that it would hit him right in the back, and a second one would hit Black.

"Excuse me, sir, but the Ministry of Magic is restricted to employees and authorized visitors. Please show me your badge," a nervous night-guard said bravely when he saw Voldemort boldly approach the Ministry Atrium, flanked by Hit-Wizards and Unspeakables.

"_Avada Kedavra_," Voldemort replied lazily. "Ah, the Atrium." Voldemort reminisced. He viewed the hundreds of offices that had windows that overlooked the fountain of magical brethren, then, speaking to ensure a curse powerful enough, shattered each and every one.

"_Reducto_." His wand was a caress as he spun around the room - windows exploded and shards of glass rained down in a torrential maelstrom. After a shattering cacophony, silence once again overtook the Ministry; then Voldemort contemptuously eyed the bronze statue. Centaur, house-elf, goblin, and wizard.

"_Fiendfyre_." Some were ignorant enough to think that when he used the cursed flame, it was a snake. But no, his fond memories with that curse dated back to his time at Hogwarts, deep in the Chamber of Secrets. And so it was not a fiery snake that erupted from his wand, but a Basilisk, king of serpents, that devoured the Ministry of Magic. Starting with that statue.

"_Morsmordre!_" High above the remains of the statue, high above the offices where the Fiendfyre Basilisk was weaving back and forth, sowing chaos amongst the deserted offices, a glittering green skull erupted, with a snake weaving out of the skull's mouth and writhing around the sky. Between the basilisk and the dark mark, the ministry was illuminated with an unnatural hazy light

"Come, my servants. I require a palace, from which to view the wreckage of Britain." With impressive control of the Imperius Curse, he delivered a thought to each of his victims - his new servants - and one-by-one they each left via Apparation.

With a somewhat uncoordinated series of sharp 'CRACK's that sounded like a collection of antique cars backfiring together, seven wizards suddenly appeared in front of a large, well-kept manor in Little Hangleton.

"So he really does maintain residence here. How pathetic," Voldemort said under his breath with distaste as he felt the signature tingling of protective enchantments around the Riddle House. He was not here for the manor, however. Instead, the seven turned as one to face to face the shack that stood on the very edge of what was once the manor grounds. The Gaunt Hovel, as it was once known.

Voldemort raised his wand, and the rotting, uneven logs of the shack twisted upon themselves - with four flicks of his wrist, the edges of the roof turned up and became the distinctive lines of Jacobean architecture. The sides bulged, and another wing popped out of each, growing sideways smoothly as Voldemort's wand continued the direction of its magnificent symphony. Arches grew out of solid stone, and solid doors appeared within the arches. Windows appeared in places where parts of the wall had Vanished.

After perhaps a minute, the rotting wooden shack had turned into a stately manor - mostly Jacobean architecture with just a hint of gothic revival excess mixed in for good measure; fit for royal residence and greatly overshadowing the nearby Riddle House.

With one last twist of Voldemort's wand, a granite crest arose above the archway of the main entrance, and a stylized italic _S _- shaped in a way to intimate that the S was a snake curled in that shape, was the only symbol upon it.

Though the manor seemed complete, Voldemort did not stop there. He paced around the perimeter of the grounds he established somewhat feverishly, his eyes never blinking as he looked at the house, his face never turning from the house as he walked some imaginary property line.

When he came to the spot at which he began his pacing, he said clearly "_Fidelius_." A wash of magic so powerful that it made them shudder unconsciously passed over the six wizards and witches, who had not moved since their arrival.

The existence of the newly constructed manor collapsed onto a single point, coalescing onto the tip of Voldemort's wand. The entire property was gone, leaving a blank hill. The entire hill was illuminated by a swirling orb of wandlight, which seemed to have a nervous, unstable energy.

Voldemort put the brilliant silver orb at the tip of his wand up to his forehead, and for just a moment his eyes shimmered with that swirling silver light, illuminating the usual red of his eyes.

"Lord Voldemort resides at Slytherin Manor." He said aloud. Each of his loyally Imperiused followers could see the manor once more as it suddenly reappeared at its place in the universe, disorientingly so for those on the property line.

Voldemort and his new servants stepped forward across the property line, and just after they did, Voldemort raised his wand and transfigured a foreboding iron fence into existence - it was easily ten feet tall, topped what looked like wickedly curved fishhooks, and the gate held the same Slytherin crest as the doorway.

When the gate closed with another swish of Voldemort's wand, the same wash of powerful magic from earlier pervaded the senses of the gathered witches and wizards. Voldemort allowed himself a pleased smile.

"Carrow, take your Hit-Wizards and anyone else without a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration. I want to know the limitations of each of my new loyal subjects - if any of them can't kill a muggle with a Killing Curse, leave their bodies. Strike at one of the Underground stations in London. When you're done, the incantation for my mark is _Morsmordre_." Voldemort said simply.

"Your will, my lord." Carrow replied immediately, then gathered a few of the others.

"Wait." Voldemort said, as though remembering something. He waved his wand over each wizard and witch in turn.

Their robes became a uniform black in color - of a fine fabric, though the cut was centuries out of fashion. The hoods were up on the robes, and there was a silver mask that obscured their face. Each mask was subtly different - only the eye slits were universal.

"Do be sure to Untransfigure the robes and mask of any servant who doesn't return, Carrow." Voldemort said.

Carrow bowed humbly, and he and two others left with the sharp CRACK of Apparation.

"Rookwood, Bode, and the mudblood." Voldemort said to his remaining servants, his nose turning up in distaste when he came to Hermione. "I do believe my new palace needs furnishings."

He strode off - he needed a fully appointed set of dungeons, secret passageways, and had to curse parts of the manor, just in case the worst happened.

He was thinking so much more clearly since coming through the Veil - it was quite refreshing that he was his old, brilliant self again. He hadn't thought to outfit a base of operations with such mundane things as traps since his time at Hogwarts; he'd planned to do just that to the Riddle House after killing his wretched muggle father and grandparents.

His rediscovered clarity of mind and its probable source was disturbing enough to nearly stop him in his tracks. Thankfully he recovered in an instant, and once more set about cursing his manor and crafting a dungeon.

All it took was a spark, and the crowd gathered in Diagon Alley knew it.

Every storefront was packed with witches and wizards, most with children on their shoulders, scrambling to get a better view - every store was packed with people trying to at least hear. There were wizards even flooding out past the Leaky, into muggle London. It would be a nightmare for the Ministry to hide it from the Muggles, as it was every year.

Then, the crowd had their spark - it had come from Ron Weasley, a cloaked plant within the audience, although they didn't know that. All they saw was a spark of fire, inexplicably winding its way ever faster through them, evading all children's attempts to capture it, more elusive than a snitch, until it suddenly burst upward above the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes storefront, and, in a grand explosion of fireworks, transfigured the red-haired smiling clown with a removable tophat into a stage.

A stage with the Weird Sisters on it.

They burst into their most popular old hit - the decade old "Like A Hippogriff" and the crowd erupted. More fireworks went off strategically, as planned, and a glittery W erupted into the air, followed by a sizable space, and then another W.

From the stage, a dark cloaked wizard rocketed into the sky, leaving a trail of matching glittery skywriting. The crowd - familiar with this rather famous wizard's unique trick, erupted into even louder cheers as he wrote the final W in his unique script before landing in a crouched pose.

He shed his cloak with the help of two scantily-clad Veela - who only added to the ferocity of the crowd's cheers - revealing the incredibly glamorous and unmistakable decadence of an Acromantula silk robe, black yet almost reflective in its depth. The cut was unmistakably from the nearby shop of Twilfit & Tatting - unreleased, no doubt it would be all the rage soon enough.

The Veela finished their dance to the Weird Sisters' music and he let them, emphasizing the last note with a flourish of their wand and a wink to the lead singer.

"Thank you all for coming to my birthday," Harry Potter said to the crowd with a roguish grin and a _Sonorus_ so casual that no one noticed he'd done it.

"We'll open up the shop soon enough, but I'm pretty sure you're wondering what the new products are - after all, I only tell Professor Flitwick the counter-charm to the big disasters after they've stuck around a week!" The crowd laughed appreciatively. Although Flitwick was able to reverse the twins' Portable Swamp in less than a day, once Harry got involved they became significantly trickier. The "first sale" always went for 100 galleons because of this.

"In the same vein as the portable swamp, up for 'first sale' today is the Portable Jungle. Be sure to stock up on the machetes if you plan on attempting to traverse it! The Portable Jungle almost instantly regrows from either machete or Severing Charms." Harry said. A Portable Jungle opened up in the middle of the Alley to several shrieks - and then 'oohs' of delight - and he continued, "The Jungle might be a bit of a welcome break from the dreary weather we've been having lately!"

"And speaking of a break from the weather, the Jacuzzi necklace is the next bit of new charms work I came up with this past year, and it's one of my personal favorites. For an hour each day, the Jacuzzi Necklace can provide you with a perfect temperature, piping hot Jacuzzi for you and up to three of your friends. Swimwear included for you!" As he finished speaking, four people in the crowd had a Jacuzzi necklace put on them and it activated, placing them in swimwear and others in the crowd in the jacuzzi in their robes - a few quick transfigurations from Harry and everyone was comfortable and in awe of the enchanted necklaces.

With barely a thought, everyone under the age of fifteen found themselves with earmuffs that had silencing charms that were playing the Weird Sisters' next song - they didn't find this too disappointing.

"And for the WonderWitch line, Switching bracelets for you and your honey-bun. Merely switch the bracelets on and -" a few gasps from the crowd indicated that certain peoples hands were no longer on their own arms.

"I do apologize about that - I had to guess at who were couples here! Hope I didn't mix it up too bad!" Harry said with a wide grin and the crowd's raucous applause. "I don't think I need to spell out the kinds of fun you can have with the Switching Bracelets, but I expect them to be a big seller. They work at all kinds of distances - so for you teens still at Hogwarts with a special someone in another House...well..." Harry's eyes twinkled merrily. "When either of you takes the bracelet off, the charm is cancelled. Be sure to find the one other bracelet in the crowd that matches yours!"

Harry waved his wand with a snap of his wrist and the silenced earmuffs on the heads of the younger kids Vanished - just as the Weird Sisters song ended.

"Now, I certainly don't want to keep you too much longer so I'll be brief! We also have Double-Fanged Frisbees that can literally eat your whole arm off, new dreams of Daydream Charms, Anti-Disarming Gloves, Wall-Climbing Trainers, Leaping Trainers and Landing Kneepads! We've got X-Ray Monocles, Extendable Eyeballs, Extendable Tongues, Extendable Fingers - no, that's not a WonderWitch Product, though maybe it should be! - and of course, a wide range of candies that will cause every imaginable bodily fluid to come out of every imaginable bodily orifice!" Predictably, the children mostly cheered at this - Fred and George might never grow up, but there was a market for that, and always would be.

"So come on in to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!" The doors slammed open with a series of crashes and more fireworks, and the Weird Sisters played another deafeningly loud song, amplified by Harry's own further wandwork, this time. He conducted merrily as the Alley emptied, the highlight of each year over.

When the song ended, Harry and the Weird sisters disappeared in a 'poof' of smoke, and the red-haired, green-hatted figure reappeared as though he'd always been there. Harry and the band appeared in one of the rooms above the shop.

"Great performance as always, guys!" Harry said, clapping Kirley Duke, the lead guitar player, on the shoulder in a friendly way.

"Thanks Harry. The plan's still for you to join us on kazoo next year, right?" He said with a smirk.

"I thought it was supposed to be guitar?" Harry retorted with a grin.

"Ha! I remember that lesson at our Yule party, mate. Not unless you enchant the thing to play itself!" The band, along with Harry, laughed appreciatively.

"Fair enough - I'll stick to showboating, you blokes play music and cross-dress. Thanks again guys." He said before they packed up and left him alone upstairs.

"It was good of you to wait for the band to leave before revealing yourself." Harry said the instant the last band member popped away, raising his wand at a section of the wall.

With a flick, an invisibility cloak flew off, revealing a petrified wizard. Oddly enough, Harry recognized him - he was distinctive, with a long scar across his face, and a glass eye replacing his left where his scar had cursed his left eye out. It whirled about, looking Harry up and down.

Harry released the petrified wizard, keeping his wand trained on him.

"Potter." Moody said in greeting.

"'Lo." Harry replied with equal warmth. "Nice scar." He continued. Moody grinned, his eye whirling around a bit.

"I got it from Grindelwa-" Harry interrupted him.

"I wasn't talking about the one on your face. I mean the one on your chest. It has burn paste all over it. I imagine that means it's fresh." Moody stopped talking, staring down Harry.

Harry lowered his wand, then, and it disappeared into his robe sleeve. He ambled carefully over to the bar on the other side of the sizable room - intended to entertain guests and entire Weasley families - while still keeping an eye on the famous Head Auror.

"Care for a drink?" Harry asked evenly. Moody nodded gruffly before smoothly striding across the room, taking a seat at the bar.

"Scotch. Three ice cubes. Single malt - one that's old enough to drink it's own scotch; I know you've got it." Harry smiled and nodded appreciatively and gave him a healthy pour. He treated himself to some schnapps, his own favorite liquor.

"So what can I do for the Auror Office today, Mr. Moody?" Harry asked, joining him on the other side of the bar after leaving the bottles out for them.

"This morning's _Prophet_. They had to delay printing by a few hours to get the story - if they hadn't, your little show out there might not have pulled such an impressive crowd." Moody said, setting the folded up newspaper on the bar in front of Harry.

The front page article had an impressive picture of the Ministry Atrium up in flames; Harry could barely make out the outline of a fiery snake curled upon a pool of liquid brass that used to be the Fountain of Magical Brethren. The headline of the front page was _Ministry Burns!_

Harry read just a bit more of the article - supposition and guesses, since it was too early to actually tell much for sure. Moody finished his scotch as Harry flipped through a few pages, and poured another glass.

"Fiendfyre set off in the Atrium. We found what's left of the night guard's body. Most of the offices are still burning; we've brought in curse-breakers, but if you've ever heard of Fiendfyre...well, anything you might have heard is probably true. It's a bitch to extinguish." Moody finished underwhelmingly.

"I'm sorry for the Ministry's loss. I'm glad you Aurors seem to be investigating the matter." Harry said diplomatically. "I do wonder, however, what you might be doing here - is there something I can do to help your Office, Mister Moody?" Both of the Head Auror's eyes focused on Harry for a moment, and he felt the slightest pull at his mind - like curtains being pulled aside. Harry kept his focus on the schnapps, and the rest of his thoughts clearly out of mind as he sipped the alcohol. He held Moody's gaze for the length of a drink before looking away, feigning ignorance at the attempted Legilimency.

"What can you tell me about my new curse scar, Mr. Potter?" Moody said as soon as eye contact was broken.

"Well with the evidence you brought from the _Daily Prophet_, I had imagined your burn was related to Fiendfyre." Harry smiled benignly.

"I'm afraid the loss of the Ministry of Magic's records on the centaur tribes are the least of my concerns today, Potter. Now, I've heard you have a few tricks. Tell me about the curse scar." Moody said more insistently.

Harry raised his eyebrow at the command, but went through the typical diagnostic charms that every wizard learned at Hogwarts - _Revelio_ and the more advanced Scarpin's Reveal-A-Spell.

"Dark Magic, of course. It's a failed spell, which most couldn't tell you...intended to kill, but then so many are, especially if they hit you in the chest." Harry drawled in a bored tone.

"I could've gone to any medi-witch in Britain for that. Here I'd heard you were something, Potter. Good day." Moody slammed back the remainder of his scotch and got up off his stool.

Harry let him get exactly three steps before he quietly said - almost whispered, "Wait."

He rose off the stool and raised his left hand above where he saw the scar and burn paste to be. He closed his eyes and felt the ugliness of the magic, familiarized himself with it, let it seep into his hand, and almost gagged from the feeling of it. All of this before he'd even finished reaching out his hand toward Moody.

It took less than an instant, but it felt like a full minute before he shook the feeling of the curse.

"Killing Curse, inexpertly cast - probably by someone commanded to do it. Since righteous anger or a parental command wouldn't leave so much as a nosebleed, I'd wager someone who can't cast it but was told to under the Imperius Curse?" Harry said dispassionately, burying his distaste and gag reflex at the feel of the magic.

"Precisely. And well done. Your expertise is even better than Professor Dumbledore said - he wagered it would take you ten seconds." Harry smiled tightly, but offered no explanation.

"Last night, the storms disappeared. Coincidentally, _something_ came through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. Fought several wizards - including Minister Riddle - to a standstill. Left many others - including your godfather Auror Sirius Black, and myself - wounded and/or near dead. Three Unspeakables and Three Hit-Wizards were put under the Imperius Curse and are unaccounted for - presumably they are with the creature." Harry looked troubled, especially when they mentioned Sirius.

"While I appreciate the news about Sirius, why are you telling me all of this? It sounds quite classified." He said warily. Moody smirked ironically and pulled a file out of his robe, tossing it on a coffee table in front of one of Harry's overstuffed couches.

"Your security clearance just got bumped up, Potter. I've known about your little 'outfit' for some time now. You've got enough gadgets to really do some damage, and I think you ought to be put to use. I got sucker-punched in exactly ten seconds by that thing, Potter. And I'm one of the top Aurors in the Ministry. We need to think outside the box on this one if we want to stop this...Voldemort. And judging by the mess you make here with the Weasleys, thinking outside the box is your specialty." Harry nodded thoughtfully, all humor gone from his face.

"I'll think about it. Thank you for the offer. I'm sorry about your telephone booth." Harry said, cryptically referring to the public entrance to the Ministry.

"And Potter, I know you're close with that Granger girl. She was one of the Unspeakables taken." Moody added. Harry tried to interrupt for more information but Moody continued on. "Someone - probably Robards - will be in touch, Potter. I think you created these so I know you know how they work." Moody said, tossing Harry a silver lighter with a very familiar phoenix embossed on it. Harry flipped it open and sure enough it was one of his more practical inventions, sold downstairs - a Flooghter. He closed it, extinguishing the green flame that would allow him to communicate with anyone on the Floo Network.

With a 'CRACK!' Harry was once again alone. And most certainly in need of more schnapps.

Harry was spit out of the Visitor's Floo of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries with his typical inelegance with that particular form of travel - that is to say, he came out butt first and bowled over two witches who ended up on top of him, all of them covered head to toe in soot.

With a thoughtless Cleaning Charm the soot vanished and their robes were pressed - even the logs in the fire were a bit straighter than before Harry emerged - and Harry apologized to the women and helped the up, while their eyes widened comically when they realized who he was.

St. Mungo's, he realized with more than a little annoyance, was absolutely packed. Which made sense, after an attack at the Ministry that left probably half a dozen people at the tender mercies of medi-witches.

Harry should have known Mad-Eye Moody had gone Against Medi-witch's Advice and checked himself out early. There was the typical twenty or so people that belonged to the patients - families, Harry supposed, and their accompanying balloons and children - and then there were the Ministry personnel and the Press. Harry grimaced noticeably. With the Minister himself injured, there were at least another twenty people bustling about, quills out - either trying to get a quote or an estimate of when they could get in to see the Minister about seeing him so that they could give a quote.

Looney, the lot of them, and some people wondered why Harry had no desire to enter politics. Harry only relented his Notice-Me-Not Charm once he reached the Welcome Desk, and inquired of the matronly clerk which room Sirius Black was currently in.

"Fourth Floor, room 403. But I'm afraid we've been instructed not to allow him to receive guests until the Aurors can debrief him - you're welcome to wait here with all the other visitors." Harry smiled appreciatively and thanked her.

He cast a Notice-Me-Not Charm and pulled his father's Invisibility Cloak around him.

"_Portus_," he said under his breath as he tapped his wand against a quill he glibly plucked from the clerk's desk. It glowed blue with a soft light for a moment, then Harry and the quill both disappeared - to Harry it was the mildly discomforting swirl of a Portkey, and he reappeared in Room 403.

Sirius was lying in his bed, awake but looking as awful as Harry had ever seen him, ghastly pale and sickly - as though he'd been out all night on the worst bender of his life, so not _terribly_ unusual. Beside the bed was a macabre mannequin with a clear body; it was filled with organs.

"Harry!" Sirius said with some imitation of his usual cheer. Harry noticed that the mannequin's lungs moved when Sirius breathed - it was surreal.

"Hey there Sirius. I heard you went into the wrong hotel room at the Leaky and got surprised by a couple experimenting with polyjuice. I'm surprised you aren't laying on your other side." Harry said with a straight face. Sirius chuckled, then grimaced.

"Ugh, don't make me laugh, Harry - damn Rupturing Curse, I'm having to regrow every organ in my body. I don't even have balls any more!" He exclaimed loudly. Harry smiled appreciatively.

"Did you ever?" He said, playing along with Sirius' antics. He deserved that, being injured.

"What did your loving godfather ever do to deserve such spite, young Harry? All I ever did was show you love and affection." Sirius said, hamming up his wounds.

"What can I say, your memory charms must not be so good and I half-recalled some bad touches in the closet at Christmas." Sirius laughed again, then clutched at his stomach in pain.

"I'm trying to regrow organs here, Harry, have some respect!" He only half-joked. Harry reached out, subtly sensing the spell residue of Sirius' wounds and shook his head disappointingly before waving his wand again over Sirius' stomach.

"Well then here - who did that Numbing Charm, a volunteer right out of their O.W.L. year? That's half the problem. I have no idea if the bruise paste they gave you is any good, but I imagine it's at least decent - unless they're still letting Slughorn's students provide it. Merlin knows why anyone thought that was a good idea, unless it was to line Sluggy's pockets." Harry had always suspected that was exactly the reason, as much as he liked his overly friendly former Potions teacher.

"Oh, that's so much better, Harry. I should get you to cast a Numbing Charm on my hand every once in awhile so that...never mind." Harry and Sirius both smiled, and Harry shook his head.

"I thought you weren't allowed to be in here, by the way, not that I don't appreciate your superior nursing abilities. Something about a debrief - I've already had one by Mad-Eye, but he said someone else was going to come around." Sirius said. Harry just smiled. When the Minister rolled into the room however - quite literally, as it was an impressively transfigured wheelchair, with his organ dummy animated to march behind him - there was no smile on his face.

"Yes...I shall have to remember that just because an entire unit is on security lockdown that does not necessarily mean that Mr. Potter does not have unlimited access. Very useful information to know." Minister Tom Riddle said harshly.

"Minister Riddle! I don't believe we've had the pleasure." Harry said glibly. "I voted for you." Sirius stifled a chuckle unsuccessfully, and even Riddle's lips pursed as though he was fighting a smirk.

"Thankfully, your visit doesn't happen to be a security breach, as you already have some of the pertinent information in a brief that has been delivered to you." Riddle turned to address Sirius, "Your godson has been given lofty security clearance in order to address the recent threat, Mr. Black. Knowledge of his involvement is not to be shared."

"Wait...what's Harry's involvement? Is he making weapons or explosives for you or something?" Sirius asked, confused.

"I don't even know if I'm going to be involved yet." Harry defended. Riddle smiled.

"His involvement is largely beyond your concern, Mr. Black. From his reputation, Harry is one of the finest wizards of his generation - he'll contribute as he is able. I believe he will make himself quite useful. Infiltration, at least, seems to be a specialty of his." Riddle said with a glance at Harry, who raised an eyebrow unrepentantly - he had been chastised by far more intimidating men.

"I would like very much to extract your memory of the fight in the Department of Mysteries, Mr. Black. Just in case it reveals anything my own perceptions might have missed. Your memories will be returned to you after they have been reviewed." Riddle said somewhat officially. Sirius grabbed his wand from the nearby table - Harry's Numbing Charm really must have had him feeling a lot better - and conjured up a phial. He raised his wand to his temple and dutifully withdrew the memory; the end of it seemed to schlurp a bit as it came out of his head, and he deposited it into the phial as one might wipe earwax.

Riddle took the phial without comment.

"Excellent. Now, Mr. Potter, I am awaiting a few guests that our friend Mister Moody had a bit of a chat with last night - I would appreciate it if you would join me for a round of introductions. Don't worry about your godfather," he said, seeing Harry glance at Sirius. "He has several other visitors awaiting him - your parents amongst them." Riddle turned his wheelchair around, and his organ-filled mannequin nearly leapt out of his way as he rolled himself towards the door.

"I'll be back soon, Sirius." Harry said, clasping Sirius' hand and smiling at him before following Riddle out of the room.

"I've appropriated a room down the hall as my temporary office. I don't feel the need to have everyone view the fight in the Department of Mysteries separately, so once everyone on this little team we're building has arrived, we'll view it together." Harry followed the Minister down the hall in some silence, still uncertain about his role in all of this, and indeed why he would be chosen at all.

The Minister wasn't quite what Harry had expected - though truthfully he didn't know much about him beside his being touted as "the most powerful wizard alive", eclipsing even the reputation of Harry's old Headmaster, Dumbledore. Riddle's rise as the shining star of Wizarding Britain was only paralleled - though there were vast differences - by Harry's own meteoric rise to fame and mastery of enchantments. Riddle wielded his prodigious magical skill and intellect as a weapon - his keen eyes were impossible to hide, and the animation of the sac that carried replacement organs was delicate and impressive work - and wielded his political power like a scalpel.

Harry glanced down at the man, looking fragile in the wheelchair, his organs behind him in the mannequin, and Harry wondered what his fame and skill looked like, from an outside view. It was sobering, and with the obvious comparisons to Riddle he no longer wondered why he merited an invitation.

He was shaken from his reverie by the Minister opening the door to the conference room. Harry was fairly certain this room was not St. Mungo's standard.

Floor to ceiling windows lined two of the walls, bathing the room in warm natural sunlight - the room opened to a cliffside view of what Harry was fairly certainly was either the Mediterranean around France, or the Aegean. The floors were a dark hardwood, pristine - newly transfigured, if Harry had to guess. All of the cabinets and furniture around the room matched the deep mahogany of the floors. Notably, there was a desk near the far wall that was enormous; most of ten feet across with half a dozen scrolls of parchment unfurled on it - quills were animatedly writing on these, then appeared to be hovering in place for signatures. There were a bundle of others that also looked to be awaiting signatures.

Riddle wheeled over there with a flourish of his wand and hurriedly signed a dozen scrolls after a few cursory glances. As he sealed each one with a stamp of his signet ring on the wax, they glowed blue slightly as they were Portkeyed away. Neat trick - Harry made a note to steal it some time.

"Sorry about that, Harry - emergency protocols to enact. The situation is quite serious, I'm sure you'll appreciate that once you've been fully briefed. Even the information Moody gave you earlier should be enough to inform you that the threat is quite real." Riddle said, shaking his head.

"I didn't notice anything in the packet about the motivation of this Voldemort. The packet said that you believe he's a wizard, but what is his goal? Even Grindelwald didn't just show up and start cursing people at random." Harry said, voicing his concern.

"I'm afraid we don't know, Harry. You'll see in the Pensieve memory that our interactions were limited mostly to flinging spells back and forth. His judicious use of the Imperius Curse seems to indicate that he doesn't want to kill everyone so much as...perhaps infiltrate? It's a matter that we're still discussing." Riddle explained. Harry nodded in distracted agreement - perhaps the Pensieve memories might shed more light on Voldemort's plans.

With a soft whoosh of air that signaled a more traditional Portkey, Harry noticed the arrival of two others. Mad-Eye Moody looked much the same as he had a few hours before, his glass eye whirling around somewhat wildly as it surveyed the room. He had on his crimson Auror cloak, which he removed and hung on the coat stand by the door. Beneath those, he wore stately black robes.

Next to him was an acquaintance of Harry's, but only just. Nymphadora Tonks had a heart-shaped face that wore its usual bored expression, purple hair that turned pink to match her bubble-gum when she blew a bubble, and today wore dark green robes that clashed something awful with her hair.

"Tonks, it's been awhile." Harry said with a smile. Tonks' mother was a Black, and the only cousin Sirius could stand. They'd met every few holidays at some party or another. Harry was unwilling to admit to rumors of a crush he may have harbored on the girl when he was eleven; Sirius still teased him about it.

"Wotcher, Harry. What in the name of Merlin's Pants are you doing here?" She asked, glancing at Riddle oddly.

"I was wondering the same about you. Unless you've managed to turn your ability to stumble into anything into some kind of deadly weapon?" Harry joked. She rolled her eyes at him.

"I happen to be a highly trained Auror, and the foremost expert on infiltration that the Corps has ever had. I'm only like, 30, and rewriting the book on it." Harry knew that she was just a few years older than 30, but decided to leave that comment alone.

"Yeah, well you forget I'm pretty much the best." Harry said casually. Tonks sent a Trip Jinx his way for his cheek.

Even though this particular set of robes wasn't nearly as enchanted as a set that he might wear into a fight like the one that landed Sirius down the hall in the tender mercies of St. Mungo's, the protective charms on it were more than enough to spit Tonks' Trip Jinx right back at her - her eyes widened before she landed face first on the hardwood floor.

"Blimey." She said, looking at him oddly before getting up off the ground and dusting off her robes.

"Stop fooling around," Moody said gruffly. "Dumbledore should be here any minute, then we can get this thing started."

Almost as if on cue, a burst of intense flame and phoenix song arose in the center of the room.

Dumbledore had arrived, stately in his periwinkle robes, a merry smile on his face, eyes twinkling at them. His flowing white hair was plaited at his back in a very genteel fashion this morning, and his beard was similarly tamed, which Harry knew was 'dressing up' for the Headmaster.

"Ah, my old friends and students! It has been far too long. Miss Tonks, I am sorry that our meeting here has extracted you from your mission to pursue Dolohov in Russia. Several of my compatriots at the ICW were very interested in your progress pursuing him. Alastor, it's been far too long - I wish it were better circumstances. Tom, my friend." Albus said, greeting Tom warmly, though with some concern as he saw the wheelchair and the mannequin standing at attention behind the desk.

Dumbledore snapped his wand at the side of the large desk, and a brilliant golden perch appeared - Harry had seen its identical twin many times in Dumbledore's office. Fawkes chirped softly and flew from the old man's shoulder to the newly conjured perch.

"And Harry. It is so very good to see you again. It has been a very short seven years, I'm afraid, since you've left the castle. Your mother has threatened my life if I don't tell you to visit more often - seeing as how she's here today to see Sirius, I suggest you take advantage of the opportunity." Albus said with a wink, giving Harry a hug and holding him at arm's length to peer down at him through his half-moon glasses.

"It's good to see you too, Professor Dumbledore. I hope you liked the birthday present I got you - socks just don't seem to cut it for me, despite your insistence." Harry said with a grin.

"Very cleverly charmed, Harry. Though when you found the opportunity to take apart the spellwork on my Deluminator I'll never know, but being able to light and put-out Horace's pipe at will is a handy trick. Thank you." Dumbledore said with mirth in his eyes.

"You can validate Potter's overdeveloped sense of self-worth on your own time, Dumbledore." Moody said with a drawl that lacked any real malice. "Let's get down to brass cauldrons here, gentlemen."

"Last night, a hostile wizard of unknown origin entered the Department of Mysteries and incapacitated or seriously injured about a dozen trained witches and wizards - all of them Aurors, Unspeakables, and Hit-Wizards, or the Minister here. As a result, we now have at least half a dozen of the aforementioned missing, under the Imperius Curse. Afterward, they marched out of the Atrium together, and burnt the Ministry to the ground with Fiendfyre. If someone hadn't thought to call in Albus soon enough, half of London might be on fire. As it is, the Ministry is still smouldering. Everyone else at the Ministry who wasn't put under the Imperius Curse - besides myself and the Minister - are in hospital beds here in St. Mungo's." Moody paused here for dramatic effect, though Harry doubted much of this was actually news to any of the gathered.

"This wizard is an exceptional threat. Standard protocols for the Aurors - tracking or engagement - are completely insufficient. Protocols say take a squad of five Hit-Wizards along - when this _Voldemort _can toss around the Imperius Curse like he can, congratulations, you've given him five more allies!" Moody barked angrily, mostly at himself.

"We need a response team for this type of threat. A team of exceptional individuals who, together, can do what the entire Auror Office can't - bring Voldemort down. We have to mobilize quickly, organize; while he is largely without resources. We do _not_ want to know what he is capable of if he is allowed time to gather them." Moody looked over each of the assembled wizards and witches with his whirling eye, pausing on Harry for the longest, in his opinion.

"Dumbledore, Riddle, Potter - each of you is the greatest wizard of your generation. I don't think the Headmaster or the Minister need an introduction, but I've done a bit of recon about Potter. You aren't the duelist that the other two are - obviously there hasn't been a Grindelwald any time lately, and you never hit the international circuit like the Minister did, but anyone with half a brain knows that the Wheezes shop is more than fancy tricks. You're creative as hell, and inventive with both your charms work and your mind. Not only that, but you've traveled all over the damned world learning new ways to make a menace of yourself, and I've no doubt you've kept most of it a secret. And as your cousin just witnessed, I know all about your experimentation with robes." Moody said, sending him a serious look.

"That came about when I was travelling internationally." Harry explained. "Got into a bit of trouble with a...well, let's call her an "overly amorous" hag in Bruges. I keep at least a minimal set of protection charms on all my robes ever since. And when I know there might be trouble - a lot more. I have a few nice sets worked out." Harry conveniently didn't mention the Graphorn Hide he'd procured with some help from his old friend Viktor Krum in Belarus, and how it fit like a very tight glove under his heavily enchanted robes, if he was actually expecting trouble. Of course, it made breathing a bit difficult, but it was a small price to pay for being able to take the Rupturing Curse that left Sirius regrowing his organs and not being too much worse for wear.

"Impressive enchantments any way they came about, Harry. As you know, my own focus is transfiguration - the furthest I ever delved into enchantment resulted in my Deluminator. Impressive, I admit, but limited in its own right." Dumbledore said with a smile at one of his favorite students.

"Yes, yes, Dumbledore - listen to yourself talk on your own time." Dumbledore chuckled at Moody's chastisement. "As you'll see, protections like that will make Potter very valuable. I've no doubt that Voldemort will bring a gaggle of Imperiused wizards and witches along to any fight we force him into. You'll see why in a few minutes, but those will largely be Potter's responsibility. With powerfully enchanted robes like he has, he should be able to shrug off most of their curses, even if he just stands there and can't counter-curse them."

"That brings us to the other member of the team here, Nymphadora Tonks. Junior Auror, but then she's always been one of my personal favorites, selected for missions well above her pay grade - like pursuing that piece of gryphon shite Dolohov, from Ireland to Germany to Norway to Russia. Bastard has hidey-holes in more countries...anyway. Tonks here has a few very special skills herself." In just a second's concentration, Tonks had morphed into a perfect replica of Mad-Eye Moody - complete with spinning eye. Then she turned into a twin of Harry, then Riddle - after conjuring a passable imitation of his wheelchair - and then Dumbledore, complete with half-moon spectacles and twinkling eyes.

"Wow, Tonks, you've come a long way from making animal faces at parties." Harry said with a grin, remembering her stupid party trick.

"I can't quite do entire animal bodies, but there are a few I can do enough to fake for an hour or so." Tonks said with pride. With a teasing look at Harry, she added, "I'd probably have to have your dad whip out his old chaser's hands and give me one of his dreamy massages afterwards though, because my back always kills me."

"Very good, Tonks." Moody said, cutting off the byplay between the two childhood friends. "Now, let's dive into the Pensieve memories - Dumbledore, I take it you brought yours along? Good." He said when Dumbledore confirmed with a nod. "There's some commentary I'd like to make afterward, but I won't bias your first viewing."

Riddle wheeled out from behind his desk to join them in a circle, and with a tight circle and jab of his wand, an ornate golden stand was conjured; it had deceptively thin arms that reached up to seamlessly morph into outstretched wyvern claws. Midway down, the light etchings and filigree on the arms gave way to full blown overlay - a fine set of fern leaves that trailed down each leg of the stand. Harry was upset at his own jealousy; the stand was breathtaking, and there was no way he could have conjured anything like it.

"Thank you, Tom." Dumbledore said with a polite smile as he pulled aside a fold of his robe and pulled out all four feet of his giant stone Pensieve. Harry wasn't the only one with a few charms on his robes, then. The Pensieve naturally fit in Tom's stand as though the two had been made together.

"I must say, since I emptied it this morning and put all my memories back in my own head, my skull has never felt so full. It will be good to empty it again." Dumbledore said as he gestured to the Pensieve with a wink at Harry. Tom smiled too and put his wand - it was a very pale wand, now that Harry had a chance to view it up close, almost peach-colored - up to his temple, then drew back from it a silver memory and put it directly in the Pensieve. A few moments later he unstoppered the memory gotten from Sirius and dumped it in the Pensieve as well.

"Now here's an interesting technique - I'll combine the memories into one, making the observations more clear and precise than either of the separate recollections. We can separate them later, don't worry, Tom." Albus said with a gentle smile. He stuck his wand in, then stirred carefully. After exactly six turns around the basin, he stopped - Harry thought he could see the Veil in the swirl of the watery memories.

"Heads in, everyone." Albus said, gesturing to everyone. It had been some time since Harry had joined his old Professor in his Pensieve, but, together with Riddle and Dumbledore he dunked his head.

A familiar falling sensation then an abrupt stop and Harry caught himself handily; Harry managed a glance at Minister Riddle before smoothing the front of his robes unconsciously, only to notice the Minister doing the same before he could stop himself. Harry looked away somewhat awkwardly.

Professor Dumbledore had entered the Pensieve memory as easily as taking a step while walking, and Moody's entry was only slightly rougher than Harry and Riddle's - his eye still spun around wildly, but the rest of him gave no indication of discomfort. Tonks, on the other hand, gracelessly landed shoulder-first; Harry shook his head in chagrin and offered her a hand up, which she took in annoyance.

Harry noticed his old friend Hermione - it was clearly her feminine frame underneath the Unspeakable robes - in a conversation with Riddle, along with Moody. Around the room there were a dozen figures in the typical crimson cloaks of the Auror Corps, the grey, face-concealing Unspeakable robes, or the assorted and eclectic attire of three Hit-Wizards. Harry recognized their Head, Amycus Carrow, along with Marcus Flint, whom he knew from his days at Hogwarts playing Quidditch.

There was the vicious howl of wind and occasional peal of thunder - it was like being in the middle of a hurricane. But there was no accompanying rain, and the wind - even in the memory - felt unnatural, blowing across their skin. It gave Harry goosebumps that had nothing to do with his being chilly.

The dozen or so gaseous yellow orbs floating around the room - detectors of some kind, that much Harry could deduce, but he'd have to handle them to deduce their purpose any further - turned orange and the room seemed to grow a hundred times more vivid around them. This, then was the part of the memory that was important.

Hermione had drawn her wand and immediately begun casting protective charms, as had another of the Unspeakables.

"_Is there a problem, Unspeakable? What does the orange smoke mean?_" Memory Riddle asked calmly. Memory Moody had already drawn his wand and, unlike Hermione, was casting protective charms not around the Veil, but around himself and the Minister - Hermione was standing close enough to them that she was within their protection too, coincidentally.

"_Orange means an unknown imminent threat is coming._" Hermione responded distractedly. Memory Moody spat out a curse once he finished his next protective charm. The wind picked up even louder, and it was difficult to make out what people were saying.

Sirius stopped his conversation and went over to the other caster; seeing what he was casting, he joined in - Harry noticed the tried-and-true "_Protego Totalum_" along with the more complex wand waving of "_Protego Horribilis_" from Sirius.

"_Croaker! What is the hell does that mean, an unknown imminent threat?!_" Memory Moody questioned loudly over the even louder wind.

Then a marble half-sphere emerged as Riddle arched his wand over his head, forming a barricade; it had an eye-slit in it, but was otherwise a formidable barrier of solid steel. Harry watched as everyone else in the room saw it and paused.

The Unspeakable nearest Sirius, whom Moody had referred to as Croaker, made to emulate it and mostly succeeded, his own barricade formed from marble identical to that of the wall it was crafted from. Sirius and two Unspeakables were held within it, and Harry saw another wall form outside of it, reinforcing it.

Outside of the two bunkers, several wizards who couldn't quite manage such feats of transfiguration erected solid walls of marble - of varying thicknesses and heights - to huddle behind.

With a blinding CRACK, a bolt of lightning struck inside the chamber and blue fire spread throughout it; the walls of marble proved wholly insufficient to holding back the fire, and those huddled behind mere physical barriers found those destroyed, and themselves flung bodily around the chamber. The only ones left standing were viewers in the Pensieve.

What Harry and those who joined him could see clearly - and what Riddle, in the memory, could see a few moments later when he was the first to emerge from his bunker - was a naked, pale wizard huddled in the fetal position where the Veil once stood. It now consisted of two blackened pieces of granite, one on each side of the crouched wizard.

Harry viewed Voldemort's unnatural body, peered into his red eyes at the same time Riddle did, and could see the burning hatred.

For some reason, more than anyone else in the room, Voldemort despised Riddle.

And from the look on Riddle's face, he knew exactly why.

Harry thought about just what _that_ might mean for a few seconds, and missed the Minister speaking in the memory.

"_Imperio_." Even Voldemort's voice was a thing of nightmare - inhuman, cold, and grating.

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

"_Stupefy!_" Harry watched Moody drop to the ground from Hermione's curse. Voldemort's rasp of laughter erupted from his throat as though it were sandpaper, he taunted Riddle, lazily flung a curse at the Minister that bristled against Harry's skin, it was so powerful, and woke up Hermione with barely a thought.

"_I don't typically allow observers! Is that you, Rookwood, old friend?! _ Imperio!" Voldemort shouted with some glee in his voice. Harry thought that choice of words odd - did he know Rookwood, then? The Unspeakable seemed to fight the Imperius Curse less than Hermione did - he turned on his fellows without even a second's hesitation, turning Sirius on the defensive. Sirius was pinned down by Rookwood and Hermione under the remaining wall of Croaker's marble bunker, and was trading spells with the bewitched Unspeakables, managing to hold them off without yet seeming to be in too much danger.

Now the fight got interesting - Croaker fell after ensuring Sirius could fight off the Imperius Curse, and Voldemort, who had put the Imperius Curse on two Hit-Wizards while Minister Riddle blasted the animated remains of his own transfigured bunker to smithereens, unnoticed to the Minister, again went on the offensive against Riddle.

Sirius flung Rookwood against a wall soon after Hermione collapsed in a heap, but only a few moments later - after bounding towards Voldemort - was writhing under his Cruciatus Curse.

This gave Riddle the opening he needed, and he tossed Voldemort against the wall like a puppet, casually battered him against the wall, then blasted him clear _through_ the marble with a well-cast Blasting Curse that detonated like a bomb.

Unfortunately, Tom had never noticed the Imperius Curses that had bound the Hit Wizards to the will of Voldemort, and Amycus Carrow's Rupturing Curse hit Minister Riddle at the same time that Marcus Flint's hit Sirius.

Harry, Tom, Albus, Tonks, and Moody raised their heads out of the Pensieve in some deliberation as the memory faded into nothingness.

"Carrow will be lucky to be a maintenance wizard when he comes back, I swear to Merlin." Tom said, breaking the silence of the room.

"At least it wasn't Flint. I'm never letting Sirius live that one down. I mean, he actually failed his seventh year." Harry said, fighting back a grin. Tom nodded in agreement.

"And Moody, I thought you said you lasted ten seconds - you got sucker-punched by Hermione. How does that happen when you have an eye that can literally see out the back of your head?" Harry said, remembering his first conversation - or was it briefing? - with the Head Auror. Said Head Auror did not look amused, but Tonks snorted appreciatively.

"As lovely as this room in St. Mungo's is - and I know you must remain here for the duration of your recovery, Tom - I believe the rest of us should discuss strategy. And one prime concern is where we shall meet. I do not believe St. Mungo's will be amenable to being our...headquarters." Albus said with some seriousness. After seeing the duel, he had lost most of the mirth that he started the day with. When no one else jumped in, he continued.

"I have a suggestion - my family's old cottage in Godric's Hollow. It is not well known. I've kept it, though I haven't been there in years. There are some painful memories there, unfortunately. But with some cleaning up, I believe it could be a perfect meeting spot. It's Unplottable, and I've put in a few security charms myself. But most of all, it's rather esoteric - I can't imagine why anyone would think to go there besides myself - or possibly my brother Abe." Albus said lightly.

Moody nodded distractedly, gathering his cloak. "That sounds fine, Albus. Godric's Hollow it is - out of the way, in Somerset, I believe. Should be a nice relaxing little getaway." If Mad-Eye Moody were the type of wizard to smirk ironically, he would have. Instead he just glanced around, as though daring the assembled group to question the fact that he'd just a bit of a joke.

"Now, Minister, as we discussed I believe I need to search out a few experts on the Imperius Curse. You had the _Obliviation_ Protocol re-enacted?" Moody asked hurriedly, glancing briefly at Harry and Dumbledore.

"As you requested, Alastor. I can't say I was happy to see that particular power granted carte blanche to the Auror Office, but should I hear word of your indiscretion, I trust I shan't be forgetting about it." Riddle said, smiling tightly.

"I just don't want to tip our hand, Minister. We'll be seeing each other soon," he said to Tom. He turned to Harry, Dumbledore, and Tonks. "Robards will be your liason to the Auror Office when I can't be around - I'll send a Patronus, but he'll probably come by Godric's Hollow tomorrow. Good day." He said before walking out of Riddle's room into St. Mungo's proper.

"I wonder if these enchanted windows work on his eye." Harry said what he'd been wondering since Moody came in, still staring at the door Moody walked out of. Tonks looked at him incomprehensibly, but decided not to say anything.

"If it's the same eye he got after the fight with Gellert, it does - I enchanted it myself after a rather furious duel in Szczecin, which is in Poland near the border to Germany. Beyond seeing through the most potent of invisibility cloaks and charms, it's really not as special as Alastor lets on. It is quite possible that he's subsequently had better Enchanters than me take a wand to it, though - I was certainly not downplaying any of my prodigious skill when I say that it is not my forte." Dumbledore said with a grin playing on his features.

"Now, Harry, I believe you must visit with your family - especially your mother, who as I have said does not let up about how busy you let yourself get! I shall escort the lovely Ms. Tonks to my cottage in Godric's Hollow. You'll join us soon enough?" Dumbledore grinned as Harry gave his grudging acceptance.

"I'm sure I'll be able to find the place easily enough. Wizarding homes tend to stick out just like wizards." Harry responded with a wry look to Tonks' bubblegum pink hair.

Fawkes flew over to his master's shoulder as though he knew he was needed. Dumbledore graciously offered his arm to the young witch beside him and, as soon as she took it, they disappeared in a swirling ball of red and gold flame and the echoes of phoenix song.

Harry gathered his own cloak with a casual spell and turned back to the Minister.

"Riddle - looking at the magic being thrown about in that duel, I know that I have absolutely no chance against a wizard of your or Voldemort's caliber in a fair fight. Or Dumbledore's, for that matter. So clearly there's no way I'll make it fair." Harry promised, looking intently at the 'most powerful wizard in the world'.

"Whenever you think you can trust us with how you knew who this Voldemort was, I'm sure we could use every advantage," Harry finished. Riddle considered him for a moment.

"You are an incredibly observant man, Harry." He said.

"I had a few interesting school years." Harry said with a grin. "Maybe we can trade stories some time. You know, inter-generational prodigy information exchange." At this, Riddle actually chuckled aloud.

"Perhaps we should, at that." Riddle nodded. "Go see your parents, Harry. I should be out of St. Mungo's the day after tomorrow - I would appreciate it if you and Tonks could coordinate a few details with Robards before that. I have a feeling Professor Dumbledore's many other commitments may not allow him to dedicate the time to paperwork, but it must be done." Riddle motioned to the seven scrolls that had appeared on his desk during the course of their meeting with some distaste.

"I heard you've got a fresh start on filing cabinet space, at least." Harry said before heading out the door into the real hallways of St. Mungo's. He didn't see Riddle grimace, but he expected the other man did.

"Merlin, Lily, stop fussing." James said exasperatedly. "If I need to slip you another Calming Draught, I'll do it."

"Well Sirius doesn't have anyone to fuss over him, James." She said with a tolerant smile at her husband. Sirius was, of course, basking in the mothering attention of his best mate's wife. She turned to him and said with a rub of his shoulder, "Now you know that if you think of anything else you need, we'll be happy to get it."

"I think this is everything I can think of for now," Sirius said after a moment of pondering. Harry rolled his eyes; he hadn't been in the room for five minutes, but Sirius had apparently tasked his parents with buying something for him from every store in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. His hospital room looked like a circus. Peter was juggling a few of the items that they had no idea where to put, while Remus was curiously examining the organ-holding mannequin. Sirius had somehow spelled a Dictation Quill into tattooing lewd drawings onto it.

"It's pretty impressive work, isn't it Remus?" Harry said to the most scholarly of the Marauders. "It's too bad the whole thing's transfiguration and Switching Spells, or I'd find a way to make them myself and Fred and George could find a market for it." Harry said.

"Organnequins? Yes, they're impressive partial human transfiguration work. I've heard the Minister had a hand in their development back when he was fresh out of Hogwarts. Working with Nicholas Flamel." Remus said. Harry's dad jumped in somewhat excitedly.

"Yep. They only did the proof of concept that inanimate objects could take on partial human transfigurations just as they could partial animal transfigurations, of course. Published in the very front of _Transfiguration Today_; that was the Minister's first time on the cover. I still have a framed copy signed in my study at home, Harry." Harry remembered the picture on the framed magazine, now that his father mentioned it. The Minister was younger than Harry was, and they even looked something alike - his vibrant blue eyes above a proud smile that Harry so commonly wore when his latest enchantment was debuted.

"James is probably one of the few wizards who can do inanimate to human partial transfigurations." Remus added, "I remember having trouble turning my eyebrows blonde, in my sixth year. Of course, Professor McGonagall was shocked when Peter got an O on his O.W.L. and breezed right through human transfigurations. Do you remember when she gave us detention for an hour and a half just to check us for Polyjuice Potion? And Sirius kept trying to get a drink of water just to spite her." The assembled pranksters laughed appreciatively at the reminder of their school days.

"Please," Harry said somewhat haughtily. "You guys couldn't brew Polyjuice if you tried. And mum didn't like you enough back then. Unlike some brilliant Potters, who brewed it in second year." Harry finished with a slight drawl.

"Oh like you had anything to do with it," Peter interjected. "Hermione brewed the whole thing, you just drank it." At the forcible reminder of Hermione and her current situation - which only Sirius and Harry knew about, of course - Harry's good mood instantly evaporated. He forced a quick smirk.

"Right. Well, she always was a smart one." He said lamely, drawing a stare from his father. Sirius looked intentionally away.

"So the Ministry burned down! Moony, you hire yourself out as cheap physical labor, right? Are you going to work on decursing the Atrium and moving the debris?" Sirius asked, changing the subject quickly. Remus quirked his eyebrow oddly at his bedridden friend.

"Oh, that would be a perfect job for you, Remus! You do have some experience with curses, after all." Lily pointed out, saying, "Dumbledore never would have hired you to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts if you didn't."

"Well, honestly I think he's about run out of candidates, Lily," Peter said. "He asked _me_, two years ago, and only took back the offer when I told him I can't even nonverbally cast a Disarming Charm any more," Peter said with a helpless shrug. "Not that Remus wasn't good, of course." He added lamely, realizing his point ran counter to hers.

"The Minister's just down the hall. Remus, come on and we'll get you set up to move heavy objects with a single wand-swish. Sirius, don't go wandering into stray curses - I'm sure we'll see each other soon. And don't try to give your Organnequin boobs. I know you've thought about it." Sirius nodded sagely at Harry's advice. "Mum, I'm sure I'll see you around Christmas." Lily raised a frustrated eyebrow at her absentee son before hugging him.

"See you, dad." Harry said with a grin at his father, who winked and patted him on the back. "Uncle Pete."

Harry took his leave with Remus and briskly walked back down the hall to the Minister's lavish room, only to find it quite securely locked.

"Hmm." Harry pondered, waving his head back and forth, closing his eyes as he felt the magic on the door. Remus couldn't help but smile as he watched his friend's son.

"I must say, Harry - you certainly took the 'eccentric wizard' bit to heart." He commented lightly.

"I spent too much time with Dumbledore my last few years at Hogwarts. Aha!" Harry said with a flourish of his wand. He waved it to the right, waved it to the left, then jiggled it.

The door squealched open, slamming against the wall; Harry smiled happily at his success while Remus just looked embarrassed and nervous as he realized they just broke into the protected room of the Minister of Magic, uninvited.

Minister Riddle was holding a Flooghter, and looked to be in rather intense conversation, when he looked up, very surprised at the noise, and saw his unexpected guests.

His lips thinned as they tightened, and he ended his call with.

"Yes, that's fine - set up the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes in the Dublin warehouse for now. I have guests, I'll call you back in a few minutes." Riddle said, snapping the Flooghter shut.

"Harry," Riddle said without much warmth. "I believed the charms on that door to be rather secure."

"Oh, they were - I had to expand the door frame to open it. Minister, this is my friend Remus Lupin; I'd like for him to be part of the Ministry cleanup team. He's well qualified and looking for work. Sound good? Easy enough. Great, I'm glad we're all in agreement, then." Harry said with only somewhat false bravado and good cheer.

"Lupin the werewolf - clever name. I'm sorry, Harry, but the Ministry cleanup team is all licensed Curse-Breakers. Unless your friend happens to be one, I can't just hire him on." Riddle said, hardly looking at Lupin.

"And here I thought Latin was a dead language!" Harry grinned, but his voice took a serious tone. "Come on, Minister - Remus knows more about curses than most of the blokes who'll be down there. He _taught_ most of the blokes who'll be down there when he was at Hogwarts - he even taught me a trick or two."

The Minister sighed. "Fine, Harry. Remus, you'll have to take the wage of an Apprentice Curse-Breaker since those are the credentials you have. If you're willing to accept that, then I'll write the memo and you can report there tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Minister. I appreciate the opportunity," Remus said with an honest smile of gratitude.

"And Harry, lock my door so I won't be interrupted, for Merlin's sake. I'm only trying to set up an entirely new series of government buildings and reorganize the Ministry in a way that can't be destroyed in a single night." Riddle said in a single breath, clearly frustrated at the enormity of the task - at least a dozen new scrolls of parchment had shown up on his desk since Harry and Remus had arrived.

Godric's Hollow had a well-deserved reputation for quirkiness.

Harry arrived with the gust of wind associated with all Portkeys, his robes rustling gently in the breeze; no one noticed due to his Notice-Me-Not Charm, but from his surroundings, he wasn't sure if it would have been necessary.

He knew Hogsmeade was the only entirely magical village in all of the United Kingdom, but Godric's Hollow was something else entirely - it was ten times the size of Hogsmeade, and nearly one quarter the population was "clued-in" in some capacity. Squibs, wizards, hags, and dwarfs - Muggles called them "little people" and told their children not to point at their disability - all roamed the streets openly in the quirkiest village Harry had ever heard of.

Naturally, this was where Dumbledore had grown up. It was perhaps the only place in England with wizards as odd as he was.

As Harry roamed the street, he saw some shops that were hidden from the Muggles entirely - Barnaby's Quidditch Supply - while others like the greengrocer he wandered in merely had a back shelf that had plants like North African Bloodvine for sale, which the Muggles seemed to avoid. Every shop Harry wandered into accepted both pounds and sickles, and the wizards strode about in their everyday casual robes and tall hats without paying any mind to the smirks and odd stares that the Muggles gave them as they passed. It seemed that the older Muggles rarely even seemed to notice the outlandish outfits of their neighbors in this most curious village - it was merely the state of things here in Godric's Hollow.

Harry made his way through the village proper, down the cobblestone streets to the oldest section of the outskirts of town. Here, he found the address Dumbledore had told him, where his family's cottage was.

It was cozy, most of it a single story with a few rooms on a second story - there was smoke coming from the chimney, so Harry could tell that Dumbledore and Tonks had made it there already. The stone of the house was grey and red, and moss had creeped onto part of it; though the grass stayed well tended, likely due to the pair of goats that bleated at his appearance. A thin, iron-wrought gate blocked the path of brick pavers that led up to the sturdy wooden door, so Harry reached out a hand to open the gate when he fought back a simultaneous shiver and he feeling of a static shock on the hand he'd extended.

Dumbledore had put up some protections on the little cottage, then. This was considerably more than Unplottable. Harry massaged his right hand, which was still numb from the shock, and concentrated once more on the overwhelming feeling of the magical protections, letting them wash over him.

They were familiar, in a way; nearly identical to the ancient protections of Hogwarts Castle. Those were considered impenetrable to anyone who wasn't a student, professor, or invited guest. Harry marveled that Dumbledore was able to replicate them so quickly at the cottage, but then the Headmaster had more than passing familiarity.

"_Praeco Patronum_," Harry said, a brilliant Hippogriff erupting from his wand. "Tell Albus Dumbledore: 'I am outside your cottage and don't fancy getting obliterated by whatever spells you've put around the cottage.'" The Hippogriff, with a flap of its ethereal silver wings, turned around in the sky before coalescing into a ball of energy and zooming faster than the eye could see into the cottage.

Harry amused himself for a few moments by feeling out the energy of the cottage's protections. Most of them were familiar, but a few of them zapped him each time he came close - brilliantly designed!

Dumbledore must have seen this as he strolled down the walkway with a smile on his face.

"Ah, Harry! I was hoping you'd have a chance to dabble with the spells - figure them out at all?" Dumbledore said before sweeping his wand first at the cottage and then encircling Harry in a swirl of magic that started at his feet and worked its way up his body in a multi-colored helix. He felt it tingle identically to the gate that he'd just reached out to. He opened the gate, and this time there was no shock of the protective enchantments recognizing him as an intruder, but only a slight tingling as he walked passed them, just as they did every time he passed them at Hogwarts.

"I know eleven of the sixteen. The rest still elude me," Harry admitted, somewhat annoyed. Dumbledore grinned.

"You only knew six when you graduated from Hogwarts - excellent progress." They walked together up the path towards the sleepy cottage. Dumbledore opened the door, which stuck slightly in its frame, and beckoned Harry inside, before ducking his head and entering himself.

The cottage wasn't quite the illustrious hideout of three wizard prodigies that Harry had imagined.

"Thank Merlin you're here, Harry." Tonks said, looking like she needed to be rescued - her hair immediately turned from a drab grey imitation of Dumbledore's coloration to a more joyous pink tone. "The Professor here was just telling me how perfect this place is."

It was cramped, the ceilings so low they forced Albus to remove his pointed hat. There was a pot-bellied stove in the main room - soot around the pipe indicating a poor seal - and what sparse furniture dotted each of the rooms Harry looked into was covered in white sheets; everything was coated in a thick layer of dust, except for what Tonks and Dumbledore had disturbed moments before.

The kitchen was likewise ancient, consisting of a non-magical icebox and stove that pre-dated the turn of the 19th century, if Harry wasn't wrong.

"Wow," was all Harry managed to say when he finished surveying the cottage. "This is homey."

"I daresay it could use a touch of...cleaning." Dumbledore offered, nodding his head thoughtfully. "There are two bedrooms!" He added brightly.

Harry inspected them; they were likewise cramped enough to give him claustrophobia. There was no room to navigate, with a bed, dresser, and armoire inside the room.

"This all seemed a bit more spacious when I was ten," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. Harry tried not to look dubious.

"I unfortunately have some business with the International Confederation of Wizards to attend. I have placed you on the invite list for the main meeting, but as the Supreme Mugwump, I'm afraid I have some politicking to do, in light of Britain's recent need for International assistance." Dumbledore said. "Please do make yourselves at home!"

Harry took one more glance at everything before inquiring, "How attached are you to these antiques, Professor?" He gestured to the appliances in the kitchen, and then to the potbelly stove.

"Neither I nor my brother Abe have very fond memories of this place, Harry. Dispose of them as you wish - I look forward to your remodeling job!" Dumbledore replied, at first with a bit of a sad tone and then regaining his usual mirthful smile.

Dumbledore bid his former students farewell, then left them alone with a subtle '_pop!_' of Apparition.

"Miss Tonks," Harry said, turning to her immediately with a wry grin. "How is your Transfiguration these days?" He brandished his wand. "Dobby! I've got some cleaning to do!"

A house-elf in stockings that went far too high up his legs - all the way inside his pillowcase - appeared suddenly. He looked around at the filthy surroundings with disgust, abject horror, disbelief, and then twisted joy.

"Master Harry Potter, sir, called Dobby to clean all of _this_!" Dobby said, wringing his hands.

"Oh, that's right Dobby. And I'll be doing a whole lot of construction on this place too - the kitchen will be expanded, I'll be adding new rooms, every room is going to be bigger, the ceilings are all getting raised to be at least fifteen feet high. It's going to be a big job. First is this dust though." Harry had barely spoken the words when Dobby smacked his hands together, and seemed to summon a myriad of dust devils - they zoomed around every surface of each room in about fifteen seconds, then coalesced and spat out the front door of the little cottage. Dobby whipped his finger at the door, cleaning off the residue.

"Much better, Dobby, thanks." Harry said neatly. "Now, let's get started!"

"I didn't know the Potters had any house-elves, Harry." Tonks said; she'd been on enough jobs undercover, surrounded by opulence that she wasn't terribly impressed. Though Dobby's magic was better than any she'd seen.

Harry was busy expanding the living room to a more "reasonable" size, by his own standards, thrusting his wand at the walls, seemingly at random, until he found proportions that he liked. "Strictly speaking I stole him from the Malfoys when I was twelve." Tonks snorted in a very unladylike manner. "I never told my parents the specifics - they figured out I had him after a few years, but he's such a great elf that it's not like they were going to force me to give him away. Mum did make me keep him at Hogwarts with the other elves there, during the school year, though. She said Dad would get into bad habits." Harry said with a wink at Tonks.

Then Harry raised the entire ceiling of the cottage with an exceptionally well-cast Undetectable Extension Charm. "Finally, it feels like I can breathe in here! I never thought I had claustrophobia, but geez this place is tiny - can you imagine growing up in such a small room like this? I don't know how Dumbledore managed." Harry said, before moving on to tackle the kitchen's basic enhancements.

"I'll leave the decorations up to you, Tonks; I hire people to do my interior decorating at WWW, I have no idea how to match color schemes." Harry said with a grin.

"You do know I turn my hair pink and purple?" She muttered to his backside. Deciding the color schemes wouldn't much matter, she matched them with her favorite hair colors.

For the next hour, piping snaked around the house as appliances were added, the small cottage attractively and gradually grew into a two-story stone home as Harry added bedrooms in a layout that, while at first seemed haphazard, oddly made sense by the time he was finished. The fact that each bedroom was an absurdly-sized master suite with a view of the Mediterranean, a deck overlooking the Black Forest, and a jacuzzi heated by various Japanese natural hot springs was a testament to his mastery of the charms he'd discovered on the Minister's room in St. Mungo's.

"Harry, these rooms are ridiculous, but don't you think Dumbledore might want a view of Somerset? I mean, he did grow up here..." Tonks began after she got over her amazement.

Harry looked at her as though she were crazy. "Are you kidding? Japanese hot springs! Mediterranean beaches! A walkout deck fifty feet above the Black Forest! This place is _awesome_! I mean, I need to re-enchant my own apartment after learning that charm, it's so great. I actually need to take more vacations to visit cooler places just so I can link the scenery to my apartment, I think." Harry considered, reminding himself to take an extended trip to the Alps and Sweden, and possibly accept the visiting lecturer position at Durmstrang that he'd been offered several years in a row.

"I even gave your bidet two settings, Tonks," Harry grinned lecherously.

"I should curse you but," she paused, then sighed. "It will just bounce off your robes anyway. Plus I kind of want to try it out." She admitted with a wink, and they both laughed.

**A/N:** That was the longest one, I believe! On to the next…


	3. Training Day

**A/N:** This is my take on a post-_Deathly Hallows_ "Auror Potter" story. It involves a time-skip. And apparently, in that time skip, I took a break from writing, and decided the story needed a perspective change, but never rewrote one of the parts. I'm not sure which perspective was the one I wanted, upon reflection, so here's both – I'll indicate it with a break so as to guide you through it!

_**Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_Training Day_

The twin _pop!_ sounds, like cap guns going off, broke the silence of the night inside the empty manor.

Dust lined every surface, and great white sheets covered every piece of furniture – it was clear that, while once impressive, the house had remained empty for many years prior.

The two figures who arrived were unpleasant looking. Though not unkempt, there was a certain unsavory aspect to them. The taller one amongst them had dead eyes, that gave him away – as he moved silently through the house, his wand poking and prodding at random directions, no emotion showed in those dulled eyes. Indeed, they had been devoid of life and emotion for nearly two decades.

The squatter man, though he was simply more compact, and not fat in any way, had eyes that showed cruelty and suspicion. A few days worth of beard, grey scattered with just a hint of the original brown, covered up his craggy face – the remnants of a childhood affliction of Dragon Pox that would have killed a lesser wizard. He was a bit stooped in his back, bent over slightly as he, too, ran his wand around the room, looking for danger.

"Well Augustus, it appears that you were right, your mother's family manor was never searched by the Aurors. It should make an acceptable hideout. No more than a week, of course, but one spent in luxury, I should say." A hint of a smile came from the shorter man as, with a swish of his wand, the covers on the furniture stripped themselves off, and neatly folded themselves into a stack, settling into a closet. With a brief whirl and a flick, the layer of dust over everything gathered into a whirlwind, and then suddenly vanished into nothingness.

The taller Death Eater closed his eyes for a moment, drawing his own wand. The room's wall sconces and large central chandelier suddenly lit up as though controlled by a dimmer, and the room was summarily brightened to a suitable level. Another three flourishes of his wand, and the three fireplaces in the living room, parlor, and kitchen had blazing fires dancing in their hearths.

"Of course, Antonin. I told you the Aurors would never do such a thorough background check into my residences. They naturally assumed that we would flee to one of your hidey-holes, in whichever of a myriad of countries they exist. Bulstrode always thinks of the obvious." Augustus Rookwood said in his monotonous, almost bored croak of a voice, removing his dark cloak and placing it on a hideously carved coat-stand. Outside, the pitter-patter of raindrops could just barely be heard over the crackling of the new fires in the house.

From a sealed liquor cabinet, he poured two healthy measures of an amber liquid into sturdy glasses, and handed one to Dolohov before wafting the aroma and taking a sip himself.

Antonin Dolohov mirrored his move as he raised the glass to his lips, taking a bit deeper of a draw of the liquid, and seeming to savor it a bit more – since Rookwood's face bore almost no expression, this was unsurprising; he closed his eyes as he swallowed the alcohol, and grunted in agreement with his fellow refugee.

"We're just lucky that bastard Gerry doesn't have a team ready. Or Potter, for that matter. You know as well as I do, that boy would be the damned cleverest wizard – if he hadn't opposed the Dark Lord…"

"I don't want to know what kind of terror he'd have been. Boy took to dark magic like no one I've never seen – except Bellatrix, maybe. And everything short of Dementors seem to just _love_ him, it's…disturbing."

A light flashed outside the window, lighting up the street outside. Without hesitation, both men flung their wands, and the window exploded, letting in a bit of hissing wind and water from the rapidly escalating storm. Rookwood tapped himself on the head with his wand, fading out of view just as he leveled his wand at the window; Dolohov leaped clear over the couch and huddled near the side of the window, wand at the ready beside his face as he looked outside. His face got wet with rain as he stood stock still for a moment, water dripping down his chin as he stood still as a statue.

With a look of disgust and a muttered, "_Reparo_" later, the window was mostly back to its prior state, if a touch more drafty. Dolohov shook his head ruefully and let out a short choke of laughter.

"Must've been a muggle car driving by – their headlights can be bright, you know. Or lightning from the storm, even. Heh, we're just jumpy, is all." Dolohov said; Rookwood had yet to put up his wand, still trained on the window; he wore the same blank expression on his face.

"Your mother's family didn't happen to have any young house elves that might still be around? I'd kiss a mudblood for some fresh food, Augustus, I really would." Rookwood finally lowered his wand, and simply nodded to the negative. Dolohov grumbled good-naturedly.

"Well, that just figures," Dolohov lamented. He looked toward the stairs leading up to the first storey – bedrooms, no doubt just as dusty and abandoned as the ground floor had been. "I'm going to find a room and bed down for a few hours; it's been nearly a full day since I've had any rest at all."

Rookwood peered nervously outside once more, out the window, at some invisible and unknown enemy, before turning up to Dolohov and nodding succinctly.

Another flash of light outside, this time accompanied by a peal of thunder that shook the house. The lights dimmed, flickered, and then puttered out.

"How the hell can lightning knock out magical lights?" Dolohov questioned from his place on the stairs. A clear light appeared at the end of his wand, and Rookwood's too.

"It certainly shouldn't, I've never heard of such an electro-magical reaction, and I'm certain I would have in the Department of Mysteries over the decades." Rookwood said in his flat, coarse growl.

Dolohov spun around to face up the stairs and advanced slightly, but was then flung across the room to impact with the far wall with a crushing sound.

The lights came back on as Rookwood's wand light went out, and he snarled at the figure now visible on the stairs.

It was a man, his rather pristine red robes trimmed in white, and an unadorned black cloak over it – the textbook garb of an Auror Cadet. Rookwood didn't bother sparing a word, he simply thrust his wand, and an angry purple curse zoomed over to his opponent. The cadet didn't so much as move until the last moment, when he somewhat contemptuously smacked the curse out of the way by moving his wand sharply across the front of his body. The crack that sounded as he did was like the ricochet of a bullet; to Rookwood's left, the curse impacted the wall and blew a hole in the plaster, leaving angry burn marks around the outline.

The cadet left his arm curled across his body, his wand at the ready for Rookwood's next move.

"Sloppy, Harry. Countering spells properly will simply have them veer away from you – no need to smack them with your wand." Rookwood's next curse – dark blue – spat at Harry with a bit of a hiss as Rookwood flicked his wand in an overhand loop at his opponent. This time Harry's counter was subtler, and the curse seemed to wrap around him before it careened up the stairs and solidly impacted with the wall of the first storey hallway.

"Very good." Rookwood said. Harry took two steps forward, so Rookwood likewise took two steps back. With very carefully controlled, subtle motions, Rookwood began his next spell. With a bit of luck, Harry would never see the attack coming after the more obvious displays.

"Augustus Rookwood, you are under arrest for the charge of treason against the Ministry of Magic. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in your Wizengamot trial. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Your wand will be confiscated and used as evidence. You have the right to a solicitor, and may consult or communicate, privately, with said solicitor, in person or by Floo; independent legal service is available free of charge, should you be unable to provide your own representation." Rookwood merely snickered at the boy's obliviousness. With a snarl and a snap of his wand, Harry simply dove out of the way.

The liquor cabinet, which had been behind Harry as he now advanced upon Rookwood, had grown into a monstrous golem, and barely missed wrapping arms - that had a moment ago been cabinet feet - around the young Auror.

Harry slashed his wand once, and the legs were cleaved off of the transfigured beast – the railing up the stairs was next in line, and three feet of it were also shorn off as Harry's curse continued its path. The cabinet fell with a crash, and liquid poured from the golem's chest area. Rookwood, his face still belying no emotion, sweeped his arms up, and fire erupted up the crawling golem and the floor surrounding it.

Harry whipped his wand around himself - a simple Flame-Freezing Charm to prevent him from being burned - and then attempted to disarm Rookwood, who contemptuously countered with a shield charm before snapping off three quick curses of his own.

The front door imploded in upon itself at that instant; three flashes of sharp white light appeared and outlined a dome where Harry's shield absorbed the curses, but both opponents turned to this intrusion with equal wariness before Harry smirked. The chips of the destroyed door were quickly turning into a fog that blocked the entrance of the house from view; both combatants knew now who would be joining the fray.

After snapping off a quick reductor curse that impacted and blew apart the torso of the golem crawling on the ground, and ended the chance that it might get another chance to grab him, Harry dove fearlessly through the flames towards the smoke-filled entryway; Rookwood's dead eyes followed him, before he seemed to spin on his heel. His attempt at Apparition failed, he pointed his wand at the cabinet and it leaped up as it was transfigured into a perfect replica of the wall.

"Anti Apparition Jinx won't last long once he decides to really fight it, Potter." The figure who stepped out of the smoke announced. A quick wave of his wand later and the smoke was once more chips of broken door, and with another, they flew together to reform the door to the house.

"Good timing, Gerry, thanks." Harry said, nodding at his fellow Auror. Unlike Harry, this man was older, clean-shaven with a short cropped head of grey hair. His robes were of a serviceable sort, though unlike Harry's were not pristine and pressed, and also differed in that the trim was gold, not white - the robes of a Senior Auror. If his ribbon bar was any indication, a highly decorated Senior Auror, at that. His cloak was further decorated; though free of frills in design, it bore a white stitched caduceus on one shoulder, and a silver braided cord on the other that twisted into quite an unusual design of a triangle within a circle.

"_Stupefy_," Gerry said, pointing at Dolohov's still body. Harry recognized it as a just-in-case measure, not uncommon with Gerry. The Senior Auror looked as though he was about to do more to secure the unconscious Death Eater, when a loud boom and two sharper cracks shook the house - Rookwood had run into the other two members of the team, then.

His ears perking up at the sound of the impacts, Harry immediately ran through the still-burning living room up the stairs to the second floor.

"Potter, where the hell are you going? _Reducto_!" Rookwood's transfigured wood-paneled wall turned to sawdust under Gerry's spellwork, but behind the wood paneling was solid steel. Harry glimpsed it from his position leaning over the banister, and sprinted into the bedroom above the hall Rookwood blocked.

"Rookwood's a master of transfiguration, I figured he'd do something like that! _Reducto_!" Harry blasted through the floor beneath his feet, landing safely in a tumble thanks to a shield charm. Gerry scowled in Harry's general direction on the floor above him before hustling up the stairs after him.

When Harry burst through the wrecked doorway from the back of the house to the terrace at the back, he noticed that his fellow Aurors were in dire straits - he and Gerry had the best dueling instincts on the team, so this was unsurprising. A dark haired witch was entirely encompassed by brick pavers in the ground, having somehow sunk into them; only her fingertips, wand, and tip of her nose were visible. Harry had no clue how to reverse such a complex environmental transfiguration, so he only hoped that she would survive until the end of the skirmish; her nostrils were not above the level of the ground.

The other member of the team was faring only slightly better. His legs and robes at the waist seemed to be switched with Rookwood's own, and the dark wizard's legs seemed to be bashing him into the fenceline, while the dark-skinned Indian Auror's legs were making it nearly impossible for Rookwood to land a spell, with his constant jumping around at inopportune times.

"I'm here, Kapur!" Harry called to his teammate. Harry wasted no time, snapping off two quick Stunning spells, but both bolts of crimson light went wide of Rookwood; the legs he stood on jumped up to throw off the aim of his Entrail-Expelling Curse. Rookwood glared at the newly arrived Harry, some emotion finally crossing his solemn face, and snapped his wand in a complex motion; Kapur was recovering from a particularly jostling tackle and fell on the floor as Rookwood made his legs go limp. He couldn't see what Rookwood was attempting, and the legs attached to Rookwood momentarily went still.

Rookwood's spell complete in a quick instant, the fence curled savagely around the prone Auror after sprouting spikes - the fence had formed a medieval death trap for his teammate.

The legs Rookwood stood on collapsed limply with the closing of his trap; only Harry's refusal to grieve at the gruesome fate and likely death of his comrade allowed him to cast his own spells at the temporarily helpless Death Eater.

"_Stupefy_!" Harry shouted, letting rage fuel his spell. The crimson light tore from his wand and impacted Rookwood with a crunch; brick pavers on the terrace likewise crumbled as they caught the edge of his spell. Another, duller red spell erupted from his own as he silently tore the wand from an unconscious Rookwood, and thin ropes bound him tightly from neck to toe, incapacitating him totally. Through the rough treatment, though, Rookwood didn't stir, such was the strength of the vengeful Stunning spell.

"_Finite_!" Harry desperately shouted at the transfigured fence; its spikes seemed to melt, but it kept the form of the cage that held Auror Kapur.

"_Relashio_!" Harry yelled, throwing an attempt at transfiguration - which would have probably been ill-fated, anyway - out the door and sticking to what he knew best. The cage exploded outward from the unconscious Auror, but this only released the flow of blood.

"_Ferula_," a much deeper voice than Harry's called out calmly, wrapping Auror in bandages from head to toe, leaving only his mouth free to breath. The white linen bandages quickly stained with blood in a dozen places that Harry could see.

"He's still bleeding fresh, Harry, his heart's still pumping. Get him to St. Mungo's, quick as you can. I'll wrap up here." Gerry said seriously, eyeing the ruined terrace and the wrapped up Rookwood.

At the sound of a loud '_crack'_, both Harry and Gerry turned, wands pointed at the direction of the sound.

"Oh hell," Gerry cursed. "I had to run off after you without wrapping up Dolohov and completely incapacitating him, and just our luck Kapur cast the Anti-Apparition Jinx."

"Gerry," Harry said, as another matter came to his mind. "Parkinson's under the terrace, some kind of transfiguration - I'm not sure if she can breathe!" Worry hit Gerry's eyes as he nodded and strode quickly toward the wand and nose poking through the terrace.

"Go, Harry, get Kapur to a damn Healer, I'll handle this!" Gerry said as he wove his wand intricately - there was a reason Aurors got so many N.E.W.T.S., and not for the last time, Harry cursed his lack of education; even the remedial classes could only do so much, as he'd found out over the past two years.

Harry grabbed his bandaged teammate, whispered, "Hold on, Sanjit!" And with a solid '_crack'_, the both of them disappeared to the entrace hall of St. Mungo's Hospital.

**A/N: Here's the time-skip and perspective change – back to the beginning!**

It was a new method of Auror training, and we were the guinea pig class.

Which made sense, since we were guinea pigs in a lot of other ways, too. Kingsley opened up enrollment to anyone who participated in the fight at Hogwarts, after all, even if we didn't qualify in terms of N.E.W.T.s.

Or, in my case, a complete education.

So, standing in three rows in the dark, only a dozen feet from the cliff edges and a drop into the Atlantic, a few feet on either side to a comrade, in the pissing, torrential downpour – a bit chilly since it was either late at night or early morning in mid-July, but just generally uncomfortable – we were getting yelled at.

I think it started with a condemnation of our general incompetence and progressed to room assignments, at which point I listened over the din of the torrential rain for my own name. It took a while. Then, all the other lads' names had been called – Ron was rooming with Oliver Wood, Neville with Ernie Macmillan, a few more I vaguely remembered from overlapping years at Hogwarts. I was surprised to have noticed a few former Slytherins a few hours ago as we all came in – Flint, Warrington, Malfoy, Zabini; out here, in the elements, they seemed to be even more bedraggled than the rest of us. Still, I hadn't gotten a room assignment – odd.

The man yelling, who'd be in charge of our training for the next few years, was called "Gerry". No other name was given, no title, and neither pomp nor circumstance was expected. I liked that, and could respect it. He was middle aged, with a uniform eighth of an inch of silver-gray hair all around his head and wrapping around his chin and under his nose. He had a squat face atop a stout but muscular body, and was wrapped in a dark cloak that repelled the rain. I guess he didn't need to be made uncomfortable like we did.

He called off the girls' names, then, and I recognized a few more names. I had even gotten a few friendly glances or smiles from across the room as we'd assembled last night in the too-crowded room just a few hundred paces off. Alicia and Katie from Quidditch, Lavender and Cho. Marietta had shown up, too, the harpy, though at least she avoided meeting my gaze.

Room assignments were over. I still hadn't gotten one. I figured that Gerry's yelling wouldn't appreciate an interruption on such a trivial matter, though, so I kept quiet.

"…Open enrollment might have been the worst idea I've ever heard of. It trivializes the work we do. Investigating dark wizards isn't easy, and it's not rewarding. The best of us have ended up villainized by newspapers as batty, paranoid, or dark wizards ourselves." Gee, I wonder how that feels. I should fit right in with the old crowd, then.

"But that's what our new interim Minister decided to do, so that's what we'll do. In light of that, I was personally put in charge of training, and I guarantee an experience that'll prepare you for the job and that's unlike anything any of you have ever experienced." Gerry seemed to glare at each of each of us in turn without so much as letting us see his eyes from underneath the tightly wrapped cloak, daring us to object that we had actually had an experience like this. Whatever this was.

Having actually died once already, I suspected that nothing could be too much more intense than that, but kept those suspicions to myself. After all, nobody likes a smartass.

"You will spend each night in your respective rooms in the dormitory, and each day here on the compound training. You will not go home, get vacations, or have free time until I otherwise dictate. If any of you have a problem with that," Gerry's mocking smirk was almost audible, "then get the hell out of my face."

I certainly didn't. Two entire months of freedom from underneath Voldemort's thumb had reminded me just how much I hated my celebrity – which was worse than ever. Kingsley Shacklebolt had stepped forward as the interim Minister of Magic, and while he generally tried to stay out of my hair – once upon a time I minded him so little I even let him have access to Grimmauld Place – he still insisted on the public gawking that was my induction into the Order of Merlin and the presentation of my First Class award. I tossed it as soon as the ceremony ended, but I think Hermione put it in a shoebox somewhere, where it presumably remains.

Kingsley was still sore about that, insisting that it was a prestigious honor rather like the Victoria Cross or the Order of the Garter, and that I should display it reverently. Bollocks to that.

He didn't quite get how my aspiration in life was to be able to walk down Diagon Alley without being gawked at.

"I asked you, Potter –" Uh oh, I'd apparently missed something he'd been yelling in my reverie, "Why you are here. Generally OM recipients help train Aurors, and are people we get advice from – in other words, arrogant cocks! So, are you here to show everyone how much better you are than them? I doubt your fellow cadets would take kindly to that mindset!"

Apparently he's been reading too much of the _Prophet_, as well. Rita Skeeter had a field day the one time I appeared in public after the Order of Merlin ceremony without my award pinned on my cloak. Apparently I disrespected a thousand years of tradition and loads of other tripe by failing to do so.

"No sir, I don't think that at all." I responded at a normal volume tone. He was right in front of my face; there was no reason to scream at him in response. "I'm here because maybe I don't feel as though I deserve that award, and I'd like to make it so that I'm somewhat capable, so that maybe I will."

His face – I could see skin from just under his nose to his chin now that he was right in front of me – didn't change, his lips a tight line at my response. But he turned away, at least, and went on yelling about the tight leashes all of us were on, and how a single mistake would get us thrown out so quickly we'd 'splinch through the Floo'. I was reasonably sure that couldn't happen, and it was just an expression.

Still though, I never have trusted the Floo.

After another three hours in the rain – for a grand total of six, though I wasn't keeping track – we were finally dismissed to our bunks.

There was only one problem – I didn't get a room assignment.

Everyone else broke off and shuffled to the two story rectangular concrete building that was apparently our dormitory. It didn't look nearly large enough to hold everyone, and I couldn't imagine it was comfortable.

"Ready to hand me your resignation already, Potter?" Gerry asked when he saw me making my way to him instead of the dorm.

"No, sir, it's just that I hadn't received a room assignment." There was someone else left, I noticed. He was small, whoever he was. About my height and build, actually. He was chatting a bit with a group walking away, but I noticed that he wasn't actually walking away himself.

"I'm aware of that, Potter. We had a bit of an oddity with the numbers, and you were picked to have…unusual accommodations." I almost sighed – special treatment wouldn't endear me to the other cadets any more than a haughty attitude.

"Sir, if this is about the medal –"

"Shut up Potter. Your medal earns you no special privileges here – you'll be treated like any other cadet. You just drew the short straw. Parkinson! Quit gabbing and get the bloody hell over here!"

Wait. Parkinson? The other figure ran up, and now I could clearly see that what I had mistaken at twenty yards from behind for a boy in a cloak was, in fact, a girl with long black hair.

"You and Potter are assigned to room 16."

She and I both objected with, "But sir!" at the same time. We looked at each other, disgusted at our synchronicity.

"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" He asked in a falsely sweet tone. It seemed almost diabolical after his hours of yelling. "Were you saying 'I want to wash out of Auror training'? No? Well then, you two had better grab your bags from the Mess and get settled into your rooms. Training begins at 0400, and you wouldn't want to be late."

"Sir, that's in an hour and a half! We'll hardly have time to unpack, much less sleep!" Pansy interjected.

Gerry growled under his breath. I didn't need a second warning, heading off to the Mess Hall where we'd gathered the evening before.

The ground was muddier now, and I saw several other cadets, having already retrieved their bags, slip and douse themselves in it.

The first thing we'd done when we arrived – it had been seven hours before, for me, as I arrived with Ron and he was inevitably late – was have the trunks we'd packed dumped out onto the floor and repack them into a small green canvas duffel. I'd managed to fit everything of mine, but I noticed with some satisfaction that many of Malfoy's belongings were binned, as was everything that couldn't fit in the duffel. I'd brought my old Hogwarts trunk, and was therefore rather unconcerned with its rough treatment as it was tossed with the others, but Malfoy's gleaming ebony trunk with silver adornments and multiple compartments was horribly scuffed and there was even a deep gouge in it from the corner of another boy's trunk.

I picked up my new duffel without complaint and was about to head toward the dorm when I saw Pansy attempting to pick up a few scattered belongings she'd been unable to squeeze in.

"Nothing but what you can fit in the duffel, cadet!" I jumped nearly a foot as a voice sounded out of thin air and a Stinging Hex hit Pansy in the hand.

"Bloody hell!" I cried, drawing my wand on her attacker.

"Put your wand up, cadet! I'm Auror Toots – I'll be one of your instructors this year. And Gerry was quite clear, girlie, that you can only take what fits in your bag. Move along, Potter."

I was torn. I mean, Pansy was a bitch, no doubt about it. But having to leave your stuff? That sucked. And I figured I'd have to offer a peace branch at some point, if I was going to be living in the same room with her.

"Er, I think I have a bit of room in my bag still, Pansy, if you want to put something with me until we get to our room." She made a twisted, disgusted face as though I'd just offered to shite on her shoes.

"If you ever touch my things, Potter, I'll curse you to within an inch of your life!" She threw a Remembrall and a few extra clothes into a bundle and hurled them across the room at the fireplace. Then, before they reached the wall, she pulled her wand and used a silent Blasting Curse, and the entire wad exploded, leaving only flaming scraps of fabric.

She saw the surprised expression on my face as I lifted my eyebrows – more at her blowing up her clothes than the curse, though it was good, I suppose.

"Some of us are here because we fulfill the minimum requirements for Auror training, not because of a Ministry decree so that precious Potter can be a token Auror." She rolled her eyes at me and flung her bag upon her back, leaving me alone with Auror Toots.

"You're rooming with her all year, kid?" A bodiless voice called out from my left. "Do yourself a favor and quit now."

I had a feeling he wouldn't be the only one giving me that advice before long.

I followed Pansy to the dormitory, slipping twice on the mud and coating myself rather thoroughly in it when I fell spectacularly. We finally reached the iron door – it must have had some kind of weatherproofing on it, because it was bare steel, rivets and all – and yanked it open, the shrill metal-on-metal grating a bit unnerving as the two of us proceeded into the hall.

It was a cement block building, squat and uncomfortable, with small port holes cut into the side at short intervals – surely the rooms couldn't be _that_ small. I wasn't sure, but suspected it might double as a ship if the cliffs suddenly dropped us into the ocean; it had that look about it as keeping whoever was in it alive no matter what the circumstances. A waterproof, bulletproof, seaworthy bomb shelter, as it were.

Once inside, the whole building seems to twist itself – lots of magic here, then. It made sense; there was no way thirty witches and wizards in their late teens could fit into a twenty by forty two-story bungalow. Even if the plan was to make us uncomfortable in the close quarters.

Pansy and I went to room 16 – left side, almost to the end – and she glared at me when she twisted the handle and shoved the door open. The room was rather plain and bare – two desks next to each other facing the wall on the right, a set of bunk beds on the left. A closet to the left of the door, and not much space besides. Pansy immediately took out her wand when she saw the small dormitory and attempted to enlarge its confines.

"_Propagatio_," She said as she waved her arm around the room and attempted to push its walls just a bit further out. It didn't budge.

"Tough luck there, Parkinson, no extra room for your private parlor. Sure you're supposed to twist your wand like that?" Truthfully I had no idea – that was a charm taught in Seventh Year at Hogwarts. Hermione knew it, and had cast it on her purse to make it large enough to carry a whole portrait around. She could probably make this room as large as the Great Hall, if she wanted.

She, of course, wasn't here to expand the dimensions of her own room, much less mine.

Hermione was at home, furiously revising for her return to Hogwarts. She couldn't pass up McGonagall's offer to come back and sit another year, taking her N.E.W.T.s with the next year's class.

I tossed my bag on the top bunk at the same time Parkinson did, and they collided in midair as they landed. She once more glared at me. No wonder the bitch had such a pug face – it seemed she rarely used another expression.

"Don't think I'm sleeping under you when you invite Granger over to shag, Potter!" She hissed waspishly as she grabbed my bag from the top bunk and thrust it at my chest. I caught it easily and flung it back up, pulling hers down.

"No visitors allowed outside of us cadets, remember? So I don't want to sleep underneath you when you shag Malfoy!" I threw her bag at her. She too caught it and flung it back to the top bunk. She laughed at my declaration – her laugh was shrill and annoying, mocking.

"Malfoy? You're so behind the times you can't even properly insult me, Potter. No one's going to shag _Malfoy_. His family was one of the few proven to be on the wrong side at Hogwarts. They're _persona non grata_. God, you're an idiot."

So I didn't pay any attention to news. Or politics. And certainly not current events.

"Shut up, you pug-faced bitch." I said tiredly, pulling my bag to the bottom bed as I capitulated. I didn't really care, anyway.

She laughed again, that same mocking tone. "Some people grow into the faces they have when they're eleven, Potter. And some never grow at all – look at you, I think you're scrawnier than you were in First Year! And that's saying something because you were a shrimp then, too. What, those Muggles too poor to feed you?" I rolled my eyes at her and brushed her out of my way as I hit my bunk, asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow.

It was about ten seconds later when I was rudely awoken by a stream of water hitting my face. I sputtered as I fell off of the small mattress onto the thinly carpeted floor, jarring my elbow.

"It's 3:30, Potter. I figured I should give you time to primp yourself before we're due on the field – so many fans looking forward to meeting you, I'm sure you wouldn't want to disappoint." Ugh…3:30 meant…a half-hour before I actually needed to be up. If I were Ron, I'd probably have killed Parkinson.

Heh, what do you know – sometimes I _did_ wish I was Ron. I made a note to remember that and tell him, he always loved to hear about those days.

Soaking wet and with my head too groggy to properly cast – or, truthfully, even remember the incantation to – a Drying charm, I decided to settle for a glare, an under-my-breath denouncement of "Bitch," and headed off to the Mess Hall once more. It wasn't like I would be staying in the room with Parkinson any more than was absolutely physically necessary.

Finally making it to the other building after a hurried shuffle – the chill was starting to seep in, now, and the rain hadn't let up in my hour of rest – I shivered and took another glance around. The hour had transformed the Mess Hall, and one table was decorated with fresh fruits, bagels and muffins and other kinds of breads, pitchers of every juice imaginable, and all kinds of other quick and easy breakfast foods. My stomach growled at the mere sight of them – the entire night spent in the cold rain had apparently inspired it to lodge a request for reparations.

"Make sure you eat up, Harry!" An excited Scottish brogue broke my thoughts as a third bagel made its way onto my plate. A quick glance at the only other cadet to populate the cafeteria – sorry, Mess Hall – revealed my former Quidditch captain.

Of course – Oliver Wood could be excited for an excuse to get up at an ungodly hour and do grueling exercises and training. In the rain.

Too bad it wasn't colder, that would really get his rocks off.

"You know, Harry, a good healthy-sized diet is the key for success in a rigorous training regimen." Oliver said through a half-mouthful of bagel. I sucked down a cupful of orange juice and then got a cup of tea – not before eyeing the small pot of coffee with some disgust – and sat down next to Ollie. I was only vaguely zombie-like from the rough night, but pushed it off – if my suspicions were right, things would only get worse.

**A/N:** Hope you enjoyed that bit of first person, sorry about the mid-story switch!


	4. Anchor of the Soul

**A/N:** The question that prompted this story was: "What if Voldemort made sure Harry was the only thing keeping him alive, and then made sure no one knew but him." Voldemort was going to play mind games with the poor kid, while Dumbledore would never be able to figure out while everyone around him would be murdered in terrible ways, but Harry would be left completely alone.

_**Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_The Anchor of the Soul_

_Hermione's lip trembled, and she suddenly dashed at Harry and threw her arms around him._

"_Hermione!"_

"_Harry — you're a great wizard, you know."_

"_I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him._

"_Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things — friendship and bravery and — oh Harry — __be careful!__"_

"_You drink first," said Harry. "You are sure which is which, aren't you?"_

"_Positive," said Hermione. She took a long drink from the round bottle at the end, and shuddered._

"_It's not poison?" said Harry anxiously._

"_No — but it's like ice."_

"_Quick, go, before it wears off."_

"_Good luck — take care."_

"_GO!"_

_Hermione turned and walked straight through the purple fire._

_Harry took a deep breath and picked up the smallest bottle. He turned to face the black flames._

"_Here I come," he said, and he drained the little bottle in one gulp._

_It was indeed as though ice was flooding his body. He put the bottle down and walked forward; he braced himself, saw the black flames licking his body, but couldn't feel them — for a moment he could see nothing but dark fire — then he was on the other side, in the last chamber._

_There was already someone there — but it wasn't Snape._

_(Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)_

Instead, an older gentleman stood where Harry expected to find the greasy professor.

He wore the typical garb of adult wizards, in Harry's limited experience at Diagon Alley – crisply pressed robes and a comfortable cloak, both in black. His hair had wings of gray at his temples, and he had a rather haughty, aristocratic face. His back was turned to Harry, but he could clearly see the man's reflection in the Mirror of Erised, which Harry recognized was the mirror he was staring into.

"Ah, Harry Potter. I was rather hoping to get to meet you soon." The man said, his clear blue eyes, like ice, snapped to focus on Harry's reflection in the mirror. He held in his right hand a black cane decorated with green filigree trim; the top was adorned with a silver serpent.

He turned, then, facing Harry properly, and seemed to take a measure of the boy. Harry gripped his wand tightly in his hand, nervous at the examination.

"I'm…" Harry began awkwardly before finding his courage. "I'm afraid I don't know you, sir."

"Sir?" The man laughed at that, and a smile adorned his features as the lines around his eyes crinkled pleasantly. "Well at least you've been taught some manners, Harry. I'm glad of that – too often hard to find these days, especially in Muggleborns. And you're as good as, raised as you were by Muggles."

"My name, Harry, is Lord Voldemort." Harry's eyes widened and his wand wavered as he whipped it up to point it at the man who killed his parents. A man he'd heard little enough about, spoken of only in hesitant whispers.

"Tut, tut, Harry, put that fine wand of yours away. I daresay you shan't need it here, and it would do you little enough good even if you did." Harry hesitated for a moment before lowering his wand, not putting it away as he adopted a hard look in his eyes as he viewed the murderer.

"Such a fierce glare, Harry Potter! I daresay if you were a basilisk I would be quite dead by now!" Harry had no idea what Voldemort was talking about, but his lightly mocking tone and the humor in his voice did not reconcile at all with the feelings of rage that Harry felt now.

"Don't!" Harry finally yelled. "Don't laugh at me! You killed my parents, don't you dare stand there and laugh at me like that!" Voldemort stopped, eyeing the boy curiously. He perched an eyebrow as he seemed to reconsider Harry.

"So I did, Mr. Potter." He replied simply.

"Why?" Harry demanded harshly. "Why did you attack them? Just because that's what dark wizards do?"

"Ah, Dumbledore never told you then." Voldemort said, smiling again. "Well, the old man will be gone for some time yet, and this mirror quite obviously isn't yielding up the Philosopher's Stone to me, so I suppose I shall indulge your curiosity, Harry."

"You see, there was a prophecy." Voldemort began, summoning up a padded stool upon which he sat. With another flick of his wand he conjured another, offering it to Harry. Harry, however, did not take it, and stood as far away from Voldemort as he could within the room.

"_The one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord approaches. Born as the seventh month died. Born to those who have thrice defied him._" Voldemort recited.

"I was made known of this prophecy, which potentially applied to exactly two people – yourself and one Neville Longbottom. I determined that you were the most likely candidate, and…eliminated the problem." Voldemort said casually. "So while I suppose I could say that I killed your parents because they defied me three times – and that is a good reason, since in that time, few lived to do so beyond perhaps the first defiance – in truth I killed them because of you, Harry Potter."

Harry felt numb at this revelation, and fought back tears in his eyes at the knowledge that he'd indirectly killed his parents. "But they didn't have to die! Why couldn't you have just killed me?"

"Kill you? Harry, I had no intention that night – or now – of killing you. Your parents got in the way – I even offered your fool mother her life, to tell you the truth. No, Harry, instead of killing you, you became my greatest creation. Indeed, a Great Working of magic. And those are rare, though you won't have heard of them here at Hogwarts, I don't think. You see, Harry, that prophecy says that you have the power to destroy me – you alone, with the right interpretation. I had to prevent that, of course. So I did this Great Working. Now, most Great Workings take thirteen wizards and witches – powerful number for rituals, thirteen. However, with your parents as the sacrifice, the triad – one caster, two sacrifices – was enough."

Harry wasn't quite sure what Voldemort was talking about, but he had heard mention of there being several numbers that were powerful – three, seven, and thirteen, mostly – and that Arithmancy, an elective in third year, taught about it.

"Now, even still, the Great Working left me weak – powerless, even, for three full years. I fled to Albania, where dark wizards are more common, it was easy enough to hide there in the simple villages where people thought me a squib or something. I stayed to myself and learned a bit of esoteric magic at the same time. And I also reconsidered my plans, Harry." Voldemort continued. He had conjured up a glass of red wine and took the occasional sip, ostensibly to prevent his throat from getting dry.

"You see, I had plans for changing the Wizarding World – you can see that it is stagnant, a rather repulsive society to tell the truth. But terrorism and attacks were ineffective – the people merely huddled together under the protection of a few powerful individuals. Such as Professor Dumbledore, for instance, with his little Order of the Phoenix. So when I fled, my followers broke and fled as well; some claimed the Imperius curse, some went to prison. But it all served a purpose – this time, Harry, my methodology will be just a bit different; more effective, if I do say so myself." Voldemort said, a fire of passion burning in his eyes.

"What Great Working was it? What did you do when you killed my parents?" Harry finally asked when Voldemort had a bit of a break in his speech.

"Ah, curious are you? Well, I can't fault you there, I was always rather curious myself. And see, that's a bit of the answer right there." Voldemort began cryptically. "My goal, for many years, was to become immortal. Not just to live forever – other wizards have accomplished that, with things like this Philosopher's Stone here. A handy gift, and Dumbledore no doubt put it here as an obvious lure for me; thankfully I was able to outsmart the old man, just like the old days. No, my goal was that I not be killed. I did everything in my power to obtain it, stretched the boundaries of magic itself, I daresay. But this Great Working guaranteed it. You see, Harry, you are the individual prophesized with the power to defeat me. And, thanks to my little Working, you now house a bit of my soul." Voldemort abruptly exploded into a wispy cloud of smoke, and reappeared inches from Harry, who jumped at the shock.

"Your curse scar, Harry." Voldemort said, running his hand on the scar, which tingled slightly as he did so, just as it had from time to time, like when Harry first entered the boundaries of Hogwarts.

"It is no mere scar, but a sign that you are a receptacle. You, my little friend, house a portion of my own soul. Since that is the case, I cannot die unless you do so first. And since you are the only one with the power to defeat me…well, that is quite a beautiful conundrum, isn't it?" Harry's mouth got dry as Voldemort revealed this, and he touched his scar in disgust.

"Have you not seen the signs, Harry Potter?" Voldemort said at Harry's incredulous look as he returned to his chair and wine glass.

"A Parselmouth, the first one in a generation! And quite the affinity for curses you've got, I believe. We even _look_ something alike – use the mirror if you don't believe me!" Voldemort's voice got somewhat frenetic then, drawing to a crescendo. "You're nothing special, Harry Potter! All that you are, you are because I made you that way! Your fame, even, because I retreated after my Great Working. The Boy-Who-Lived, and no one could ever figure out just _why_! Everything special about you is only there because a small fraction of my greatness resides in you, along with my soul. You are nothing, Harry Potter, and I am the greatest sorcerer since Merlin himself." Harry denied Voldemort as he finished his monologue.

"You were afraid of Dumbledore! Even at the height of your power, before your 'Great Working'. Dumbledore's the greatest wizard!" Voldemort's smile grew cold, almost snakelike as he considered Harry, the last of his wine drained from the glass.

"Do you know why Merlin was so great, Harry Potter? Do you know what he did? Besides forge the Wizard's Council, which predated our Ministry of Magic, of course. It was very simple, Harry. Merlin did not need the spells that most wizards rely on to use their magic. He merely spoke his desire, and the magic complied. No wizard before or since was able to do so." Voldemort said calmly, regarding his glass; it was empty, with only a slight puddle of remaining wine lining the bottom.

"Be gone, glass." The glass vanished.

Harry blinked. Vanishing was possible, of course, but it was difficult magic, not generally taught until 4th year.

"You see, Harry Potter? That power is no longer lost with Merlin. I, too, can command and magic obeys. Cup of tea, come here won't you?" A cup of tea and a saucer appeared out of thin air, Voldemort sipped it, then made a face.

"I believe it needs a bit more sugar, Harry. I always had a bit of a sweet tooth. Sugar bowl and spoon, I have need of you." A sugar bowl appeared, and a spoon shoveled sugar into Lord Voldemort's tea seemingly of its own volition. "Enough," Voldemort said before taking a drink of his tea and smiling at Harry once more.

"As I said, Harry, the greatest sorcerer alive. Me." Voldemort continued. "I should have known better than to suspect my mother – the last heir of Slytherin, of course – to choose a common Muggle to mate with. No, indeed Thomas Riddle Sr.'s family came from Wales. And, tracing the family line back, they once had the surname of Emrys. Which was Merlin's surname in the original Welsh – the Riddles were not Muggles, but Squibs. So you see, I am the heir of not only Slytherin, but also of the great Merlin himself. And when these two powerful bloodlines mixed, well…you've seen the results yourself." Voldemort said, gesturing to himself. "You may leave now." He addressed the teacup and sugar bowl.

"I do believe Dumbledore is on his way back here now, Harry, so our time together draws short." Voldemort said, Vanishing his chair with the more traditional flick of his wand.

"I'll tell everyone. Dumbledore will figure out how to defeat you." Harry said weakly. Voldemort actually smiled then, and knelt so that he was at Harry's eye level.

"Oh, I very much doubt that, Harry." He said seriously. "You see, Dumbledore once came up with a motto, a slogan if you will, that he to this day takes very seriously. 'For the Greater Good'. The man will, and has, done anything so long as it benefits the greater good. His childhood friend Gellert Grindelwald – you'd know him as an infamous dark wizard, I believe – used that slogan as his wizard armies advanced before the Muggle forces of the Germans in World War II. He engineered the entire thing because he believed, rightly, that Muggleborns are a threat to our society, and need to be dealt with for the betterment of all wizards. What do you think Dumbledore will do when he finds out that you, a young, defenseless boy, are what is keeping me alive despite curses of all sorts finding their mark as they seek my death? Would he sacrifice one child, you, Harry, for the sake of all the Muggleborns who may die at my wand? No, Harry, I do not think you will tell _anyone_ my secret. Because Dumbledore, or perhaps the Ministry, or perhaps some vigilante witch, upset at the death of her loved one at my hand, may just kill _you_ so that I am mortal once again.

"I'm glad we've had this chat, Harry. I'll keep in touch with you." Voldemort promised, tousling Harry's hair as Harry considered the implications.

"Step away from the Mirror, Tom." The flames surrounding the entry to the chamber died in a sudden 'whoosh' and Dumbledore stepped through, his wand raised and his beard blown back across his body, so fast did he move.

"Ah, Albus – I'd been wondering how long it would take for you to arrive, old teacher. Come to challenge me to another Wizard's Duel?" Tom said with laughter alight in his cold blue eyes.

"I daresay the time for things like honorable duels has passed, Tom." Dumbledore said, his wand raised.

"Ah, of course. Well I have no desire to live like a Squib anyway, but I suppose my not agreeing to an Oath wouldn't matter since you don't intend for an honorable duel. Shall we start with the flames, then?" He gestured with his left hand, and the flames that died with Dumbledore's arrival reignited into a blaze taller than the walls, so that they wrapped around to envelop the ceiling. The room's temperature jumped several degrees. Harry, standing helplessly to the side of the two wizards, merely eyed them and gulped.

"You often do, Tom." Dumbledore stole some of Voldemort's fire then, and as it coalesced in his hand, he threw it at Voldemort and waved his wand – it wrapped fire around him in a cage.

"Freeze." Voldemort commanded the flames; they turned immediately to ice statues of flames; with a point of his wand the entire circle exploded into shards of ice and shot at Dumbledore.

With a whiplike circular motion of his wand, a massive disc of flames appeared in front of Dumbledore, and the ice shards melted in the intense heat into mostly water. The three larger shards that got through his defense, he transfigured into birds that subsequently flew away.

"Gargoyles." Voldemort said, indicating the stone columns around the room. Every other column immediately leaped away from its place and collapsed into a stone gargoyle wielding a wicked looking axe.

Dumbledore pointed his wand at one gargoyle and it sprouted feathers – for a moment Harry thought the old wizard had succeeded in attempting to transfigure it, but the gargoyle merely shook itself like a dog shaking itself dry, and the feathers molted to the floor. The assaulted gargoyle then charged at Dumbledore, who shot several more spells in quick succession before it was entirely destroyed.

"Quite impressive, aren't they Dumbledore?" Voldemort taunted. The other twelve gargoyles formed a vague semicircle around Dumbledore as the old wizard fought off a furious myriad of curses from the grinning Voldemort.

His canny defense, deflecting as many of the younger wizard's curses at the nigh-indestructible gargoyles as possible, was just one reason why Harry realized his Headmaster was considered one of the most powerful wizards on the planet.

And yet, even he seemed overmatched by Voldemort's strange magicks.

"Globes defend me." Voldemort called out, pointing at a randomly cracked stone tile that immediately congealed into rough orbs that spun above Voldemort's head as Dumbledore started his counteroffensive.

A great whooshing of a tornado of fire erupted as Dumbledore's wand circled above his head, releasing a great gout of flame hotter than any he'd previously conjured. Harry ran behind one of the remaining pillars to avoid the heat of it – Voldemort seemed unaffected, but Harry who was farther away was sweating. From the circle of fire, which seemed keep the gargoyles at bay, several small spurts of flame lashed out at the stone creations menacing their axes. The gargoyles hit by the flame were blackened at least, and after particularly fierce gouts, were often missing pieces.

A giant bird of fire arose from the circle, then, and from above Dumbledore's head made to dive-bomb Voldemort.

Before it got close, Voldemort simply commanded, "Stop." The bird advanced no further, and even Dumbledore's eyes grew wide at this power.

"Fiendfyre, Dumbledore? Resorting to any tactic, then, to counter my superior magic. I must say, I'm almost _proud_, seeing you use the cursed flame. Though obviously the magic of Merlin himself is far beyond even that powerful conjuration." Voldemort said calmly. The gargoyles continued to fight Dumbledore even as their master paused, and the Headmaster was forced to defend himself from thrown axes and disconnected stone limbs of the gargoyles; one of the more brave figures even sacrificed itself by leaping atop the flame, allowing two of its brothers to bypass the circular barrier. Dumbledore destroyed one of them, but the second clubbed the old man viciously, when he blocked it with his arm, an audible crack was heard before Dumbledore could destroy the gargoyle.

With a wave of his wand, then, the fire around him and the phoenix disappeared, and Harry had to clamber away from the protection of the pillar he was hiding behind as it turned into an enormous lion that leapt upon the nearest gargoyle. The two battered at each other, somewhat evenly matched – the gargoyle seemed more durable, but the lion more vicious and canny. At least, it was before Voldemort turned it to a pile of dust with an almost contemptuous wave of his wand.

"Pitiful, Dumbledore – surely, you see how my creations are much superior to your halfhearted transfiguration!" Voldemort said as he and Dumbledore circled once more, though Voldemort still had a bit of a break as Dumbledore defended himself from the occasional onslaught of the five remaining gargoyles.

As they circled, however, Harry realized that Voldemort now turned his back to Harry himself; he was only feet away from the evil sorcerer, and might be able to help Dumbledore.

The old man must have seen the decision in the young boy's eyes, as they flickered to him for just a moment, and Dumbledore shouted a series of spells at Voldemort, whereas before they had been silently cast.

It was enough of a distraction for Harry to almost whisper one of the few offensive spells taught to first years in their Defense class – such material was usually reserved for third years and up.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" He whispered with desperation, and a half-prayer that the Dark Lord did not kill him with a flick of his wand.

With bated breath, Harry watched his spell get closer and closer, until finally the white light of Harry's spell impacted with Voldemort and spread across his body as his limbs snapped together.

Before it had even hit, Dumbledore yelled, "_Avada Kedavra!_" An ugly green light shot from his wand, and it was almost slow motion that Voldemort's limbs snapped together.

His head, despite being supposedly frozen in a forward position, turned to face Harry; the Dark Lord winked at Harry, causing his blood to run cold. As the green light hit Voldemort, his body erupted into black smoke that dissipated into the thin air.

The rest of the gargoyles fell to Dumbledore's wand soon enough, without Voldemort drawing his attention, and amidst the ruins, finally there was only Harry and Dumbledore standing.


	5. Pursuit of Happiness

**A/N:** This one came about from an idea thrown about on DLP (before I'd ever seen or read _Fight Club_) about Harry who develops schizophrenia from the abuse. Unfortunately, I was apparently too subtle, and everyone thought it was a story about Harry's superpowered kid friend (except Nonjon).

_**Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_Pursuit of Happiness (formerly "Repression")_

I was scared.

After all, I'm only six years old, and my uncle is a very large man, who was currently holding me up by my arm and yelling at me; his face had turned the puce that indicated his fourth stage of angry – violent. I'd gotten past that to other shades, of course, in the past, which were really violent and call-the-professional-cleaners violent, respectively. I still shuddered a bit when I thought of the mess he made that needed the professional cleaners.

"You're scared now, boy?!" Uncle Vernon roared, spittle flying in my face as he waved me around by my right arm – that's a bit painful, by the way. I was plenty scared of him, of course, but I still wasn't sure quite why I was in trouble. It wasn't my fault Mrs. Garish, my teacher at school, had a lovely shade of pink hair.

I mean, sure, I was mad at her at the time – Dudley had just kicked me rather painfully for raising my hand to answer a question that he didn't know, so I was upset that she called on me – but I wasn't in the habit of carrying hair dye around with me, so it definitely wasn't my fault.

"You think volunteering an answer'll make our Dudders look bad, do you? Well, I'll make it so you never raise this bloody arm again!" Uh oh, that didn't sound good. Sure enough, Vernon grabbed my battered twig of a right arm with both of his meaty hands now and was bending, bending – oh, this was _not_ good at all, and I braced myself for the inevitable snap of my malnourished arm.

WHAM!

Vernon was on the floor just like that, and I dropped easily to the ground, my arm thankfully unbroken. Dudley, who had only moments ago been cackling gleefully at his father's actions unrestrained by Aunt Petunia – at the store buying half the meat section for the twin hippos – stood staring in shock, his eyes widened in a manner that would have been extremely funny if my shoulder wasn't still sore from Vernon waving me around like a doll.

I looked at the spot from where Vernon had been sent flying, and saw…myself?

He was just like me in every way, and yet, he seemed so different. He was my age, height, slim – some might say emaciated – build, even had my vivid green eyes and messy black hair.

"Hey there, handsome," he said with a roguish grin, while I just gaped dumbly at him.

"Er...hi?"

"Name's David, nice to meet you." He stuck out his hand in a friendly manner, which I shook as formalities dictated.

"Oi! Dursley!" David said, kicking Uncle Vernon is his fat belly. I was rather surprised that the man grunted from his spot on the floor – with all of those layers of fat, David must have some kick. Of course, a kick from the boy had laid out the beached whale just a moment ago, so I probably shouldn't have been so shocked.

"You ever touch Potter over there again, and I'll do more than change your hair pink. Got it?" His voice had started neutrally enough, but had dropped until there was a nearly palpable cold permeating the room from the chill of his voice. He looked over at me – I think I still had a gob-smacked look on my face, truthfully enough – and winked slyly before going over to Dudley. Uncle Vernon whimpered slightly in response, so David continued, "And give him a proper bedroom, for God's sake! And feed him!" Uncle Vernon had gathered himself up from the floor now, and was starting to look indignant at the boy.

"Why you –" a raised hand was as far as he got before David, with shocking speed and strength obviously coming from somewhere besides his just-over-three-foot frame, snatched his hand out of the air and bent his entire arm back, driving Vernon to his knees as the older man cried out in pain.

"You ever try to hit _me_ again, and no one'll find your body." I never knew a six year old like me could growl, but there it was.

"Dinky Duddydim?" David said sweetly, in a fair imitation and corruption of one of Aunt Petunia's many pet names for her favorite child. I gave up trying to guess where he knew all of this from at this point, and just figured it was easier if I didn't know. Dudley backed away as fast as he could – his mouth still open like earlier – and fell on his backside, trying to scramble away.

"D'you know what'll happen if _you_ tell anyone, even dear mummy, what happened here today?" He started in that same sweet voice, which instantly changed back to his cold threatening one, "You won't need liposuction, because I'll tear off your skin and remove all your fat the old-fashioned way. You won't survive, and you'll be glad of that little comfort!" David once more winked at me before sauntering away out the door. Vernon and Dudley were left to stare in horror at the only one of us who'd managed to stay standing throughout the encounter; I happened to be massaging my shoulder just a bit.

"Y-y-you…FREAK!" Dudley shrieked at me, running up the stairs faster than I'd ever seen him. Hmmm…when threatened, he might do well at football, despite poor performance in our gym class.

Vernon was left eyeing me, his eyes holding the same terrified expression as Dudley's, so I muttered, "Er…I'll just be going to my cupboard, then…"

"NO!" He nearly squeaked, more than an octave above his usual range, "Er…y-you're getting to be a bit big for the cupboard. Take Dudley's spare room, H-h-Harry." I shrugged, more than a bit surprised at my good luck. I was immediately suspicious that I would hopefully gather all my worldly belongings and move them up to the room only to have them burned or something by Uncle Vernon, but decided to take the chance.

By the time I got up there, Dudley was hurriedly shuffling all of his broken toys out of the room, still moving almost as fast as he had up the stairs, while Uncle Vernon nervously looked between me and his son, his beady eyes moving quickly.

"Er…I'll just go to the playground, then, until he finishes…if that's alright?" I asked hesitantly. Normally, the Dursleys would lock me up in my cupboard for the rest of the night if I so much as suggested such a thing, but I felt like pressing my luck today.

It paid off, and ten minutes later I was swinging by myself at the park near my primary school. The silence was beautiful, and the weather was at least decent, for October in Surrey.

"You doing okay, then?" I jerked at the sound of a familiar voice – it was David again, though how he snuck up on me I couldn't tell. He was swinging slightly in the seat next to mine, swaying back and forth casually.

"Oh, yeah! Thanks for that back there, I thought I was really going to get it! But now they're moving Dudley's broken toys out of the second bedroom and I'll get to stay there!" I said, excited at the prospect. David smiled a bit and nodded.

"Good, I was hoping they didn't need another reminder." He was quiet for just a moment when he said, "I won't ever let them hurt you again, Harry. You've been hurt far too much already." I smiled at him, my first friend. I was a pariah at school, Dudley had made sure of that – everyone knew I was an orphan and that Dudley and his friends would pick on me and anyone who associated with me.

"Thanks, David! You're really strong, you know, for being my size and everything. Why do you look like me, anyway?" I said, my eyebrows furrowing slightly before I came to the conclusion, "Are you like, my brother?!" I asked excitedly. I probably squeaked a bit, but I'd never had a brother before. It was a great feeling of belonging.

"Yeah, we're like brothers, Harry," he said, smiling too. I got off my swing and hugged him tightly – my first hug, and neither of us shied away from it!

"Looks like you've got company, Harry – I'll be around." I glanced over to where he pointed, and didn't even feel him slip out of my grasp or hear him wander off as I looked more closely at the approaching men.

At first, I thought they might be women in dresses, but one had facial hair and both had rather close-cropped hair, so I thought it unlikely. They were also carrying sticks, but that wasn't that unusual – I played with sticks all the time, pretending they were swords or guns or all kinds of other fun things.

I never did it in front of the Dursleys – I'd made the mistake once while pretending my stick was a magic wand, and Uncle Vernon had instantly gotten to the fifth shade of puce – extremely violent – even before I'd told him what it was. When I swore I was just pretending, he finally let me go, but the bruises had only faded a week later.

"Hi there! My name's Harry!" I said to the tall men, sticking my hand out to greet them. I remember hearing that I shouldn't have talked to strangers, but these guys seemed fun – after all, they played with sticks, too.

"'Ey there, kiddo, wait…Harry Potter!" He said, staring open-mouthed at the scar on my forehead. I didn't like the ugly mark, but secretly did, because it reminded me of my parents, killed in a car crash.

"That's me!" I smiled brightly – they knew my name, like I was a famous person from Aunt Petunia's magazines – this was _cool_.

"Blimey, Ern! 'Arry bloody Potter! Wait'll I tell Doris, mate!" The blonde with facial hair exclaimed, wide-eyed. The other merely nodded dumbly.

"So what are you gentlemen doing around here? Playing with your sticks? Can I join you – I love playing pirates, or knights with swords!" I enthused, unused to playmates, much less older ones with more experience playing as knights. I'd bet they were _really_ good at it, after doing it all those years.

"Er…we're a Magic Reversal Squad. Some kid turned his teacher's hair pink, and we're going to – wait, was that you? Was that your accidental magic?" I ignored their question, instead focusing on the word _magic_. I'd learned long ago never to say it, for fear of the Dursleys' wrath. Saying the 'm-word' was the only sure way to hit the Sixth Level of Puce, which needed professional cleaners from the mess Uncle Vernon would make when he pitched a fit. And to think, I'd only been describing a dream.

"You mean you guys can do _magic_!?" I said wonderingly to them, eyes wide. They both smiled brightly at me in return.

"O' course, kiddo! And you can to, since you turned your teacher's hair pink. It's a sure sign, after all. Hah! Few years, you'll be going to Diagon Alley and getting a wand, then off to Hogwarts! Makes me wish I had a kid your age – that's somethin', eh Ern? Go to Hogwarts with Harry Potter! Merlin!" I laughed along with them, even though I didn't really understand what he was saying. Adults do that sometimes.

"How can I get to Diagon Alley? I want to get a Merlin wand too!" I said, trying to contain my excitement at joining their exclusive group.

"Blimey, we're late, Ern. Diagon Alley's in London, Mr. Potter. Just go through the Leaky Cauldron, on Charing Cross, o' course! It was an honor meeting you!" They both shook my hand violently and departed quickly, heading towards the school.

"So, Harry," David said, once again appearing from out of nowhere by my side, "Are you free tomorrow for a trip to London?"

It was a Saturday, so I was very free. Except for chores for the Dursleys, of course…maybe David could ask them if I could skip tomorrow, though.


	6. Mr and Mrs Potter

**A/N:** The inspiration for this story is the movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". I don't think it needs any more introduction than that.

_**Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_Mr. and Mrs. Potter_

'CRACK!' 'pop'

The sound of two Apparitions nearly simultaneously sounded in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. The two adult wizards who appeared from nothingness were like a study in opposites. The quite tall, red-haired wizard on the left was the picture of a typical bachelor, and veritably oozed a sense of disorganization. He was thick, obviously having suffered from a slowed metabolism that meant he could no longer eat as he had before he hit twenty-five. His robes, the standard Auror uniform of canary yellow, which clashed terribly with his unwashed hair and scraggly facial hair, were wrinkled and there were visible stains near his waist, where food had obviously been spilled on them.

His counterpart, too, had wild hair, but the similarities in their appearance ended there. The jet-black hair looked perpetually windswept on the shorter man, and though it was untended, it at least looked hygienic and well-trimmed. He was also clean-shaven, and projected order and control in a noticeable aura. His robes, which were the same canary yellow, though of much nicer material and trimmed in a pattern that presumably indicated rank of some kind, were pressed and underneath them, he seemed to have a lean musculature where the other had gone soft. He wore glasses, small frames that added intelligence to his face, and had a bit of a smirk on his face as he addressed the other man.

"Hermione didn't seem to take your little joke about her not believing in your driving skills very well, did she?" He said, only somewhat joking.

"Tell me about it, Harry. Merlin, I don't know how we stayed together long enough to produce those wonderful little brats. Still feels weird, dunnit? Us not getting along well? Don't know why it can't be like when we were back at school…" The redhead seemed to get a somewhat reminiscent tone to his voice at this last part, which caused Harry to snort and fight back laughter.

"At school? Are you talking about Hogwarts? Ron, you two spent half of those years not speaking to each other! I always did think you were pretty barmy for getting together in the first place. Hey, Steve." Harry addressed the last to the wizard in the security booth who ensured that the wands were checked. Harry took the printout parchment and moved along without another word to the boy.

"H-hello, Mr. Potter. Ron, good to see you again." Ron got a bit of a smile and a more familiar address as he stopped to chat.

"Heya, Steve-o! Don't forget you still owe me those 6 galleons from that chess game at lunch yesterday!" Ron grinned and took off after Harry, who was holding the elevator. They got in with only three paper airplanes flying circles above them – many employees were still at the Platform from the annual Hogwarts send-off, it seemed, so it would be a slow morning.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Harry. But at least we can usually stand each other when we get together for the kids at Christmas and stuff. We're probably better off as friends, anyway. Not everyone can have yours and Ginny's relationship." Harry grunted noncommittally as they got off at the second level and headed for the Auror office, the realm of their joint employment.

The office, which occasionally bustled with activity as the Aurors strove to track the movements and doings of Dark wizards throughout the UK and Ireland, was fairly sedate that morning, with only a handful of greetings chorused as the two entered. Ron retreated to his desk, which was surprisingly free of clutter, taking into account what one expected from his appearance, though his trash was overflowing from the boxes of Muggle frozen dinners, while Harry turned toward a door with his name on it.

"Mr. Potter, good morning! James and Al get on the train all right?" A pretty young blonde witch nearly exploding out of her low cut robes asked from her desk in front of that door. Harry smirked a bit as Ron stared hungrily at his secretary.

"Good morning, Stacy. What's on the queue for today, anything good?" Harry asked in a bored tone, grabbing two messages from his superiors in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He tossed both in the bin after cursory glances.

"Well, there were those two meetings with those French Aurors who came over for the week, that's at one this afternoon; and also the meeting with the Department of International Magical Cooperation at three. But Mr. Weasley was going to be your proxy for both of those, so I guess your afternoon is free for all that paperwork." She finished with a smile and a wink. Harry grinned ruefully and breathed out somewhat exasperatedly at the prospect.

"Ah yes, the exciting life of Head Auror, eh? Well, I'd best get started on it, if you're still up for those meetings, Ron?" His friend was still staring at the busty secretary as he distractedly agreed, so Harry just went into his office and silently secured the door, the frosted glass window providing him enough privacy.

He sat down at the gorgeous mahogany desk – a gift from a grateful Eastern European wizard after the return of his daughter from the clutches of a would-be Dark Lord in one of Harry's first tasks as Head; back then, far too many of the nations in that area had needed the help of Britain's renowned Auror team of Potter and Weasley to put down some threat or another – and didn't even budge as a voice suddenly sounded from behind him, "Good morning, Harry."

"Good morning, Mr. Croaker, and Happy Birthday." Harry said as he signed three documents without reading them and didn't turn around.

"Seeing as how my personal information has been removed from all records for nearly fifty years, I'm quite interested in how you know that, Harry." The voice, emanating from a face on what appeared to be a broken Muggle television in the rear corner of Harry's office, said somewhat threateningly.

"And because I hate ruining the mystery surrounding the Department of Mysteries, you know I'll never tell you. Besides, one old man keeping far too tight a leash on me was enough – I'll keep you guessing, I think. So to what do I owe this visit, Mr. Croaker?" Harry said, finally turning to face the television screen. The grey cloak and hood of the Unspeakable gave nothing away as it regarded Harry.

"Another job, Harry. One that requires…your particular style of finesse. The Portkey on your desk – the brass ring and usual activation word – will take you to a Nigerian rebel camp. These rebels, however, have been using a rogue Dark Wizard to help their strikes." Harry smiled coldly at this.

"Ooh, bad move there. He should have known better than to aid Muggles – draws too much international attention after Grindelwald." Harry said as Croaker nodded seriously.

"Indeed, she should know better. The usual contract applies; whatever you find on-site is yours, and you can turn it in if you want us to destroy it," Harry refrained from rolling his eyes – he'd never taken Croaker up on this offer, destroying everything or, more likely, keeping it as he saw fit – and the Unspeakable continued, "The hit on the mark is Twenty thousand galleons, Harry." Harry scowled and groaned.

"Twenty thousand? What do you think I am, some kid? Seriously, Croaker, my average over the past five takes is forty, and that included the Bulgarian bloke that I only took because it was a favor for Viktor."

"Ah yes, Dark wizard and political opponent. Cunning move on his part, really, bringing forward that evidence so soon before the election that another opponent couldn't be brought forward…this one's serious, Harry, or I would have just not bothered you. Four boys have tried and failed to bring her down, so I suspect that she's expecting some resistance. She could also mean some real trouble if things escalate in the region. She's a potential serious threat, even if she hasn't fully developed into the typical national scale type thing you're used to. We need the best, Harry." Croaker sounded sincere. Harry sighed rather petulantly before smirking.

"Yeah, yeah, 'You're the greatest, Harry,' 'I need you, Harry.' Fine, fine, get off your knees, I'll do it. Don't blame me if I end up in the poorhouse, though, because if you keep my prices that low –"

"Thank you Harry, always a pleasure. Intel's on the desk. It's Moriana Denours, Harry. I thought you should know. Nigeria's prison has received notice and is waiting for her." His face hardened slightly at the familiar name – the only hit he'd ever missed to another Agent. He silently vowed not to miss this time.

The mentioned parchment roll appeared a moment later on Harry's desk, and he put his feet up on the desk as he reviewed the details – camp layout, estimated forces and armament, response time of reinforcements, and so forth – before pointing his familiar holly wand at one of the side walls of his office. The blank white wall disappeared, replaced by a grey steel cabinet that Harry walked over to. He tore off his yellow Auror robes and reverently took down the tight, tough, leathery gear hanging within the cabinet. They were crafted of graphorn hide, the toughest spell-resistant armor used in the Wizarding world, making even dragon hide seem useless in comparison. Harry had confiscated the hide from a hit on an enormous graphorn that destroyed a village in Russia when it came down from the Ural Mountains; his reward for the take, along with a sixty thousand-galleons. The armor had probably saved his life several times, as he took Dark spells fairly regularly in his line of work.

Just what was his line of work? He reflected as he donned the tight protective gear. He was an assassin, pure and simple. True, he liked to think that he had more morals about it than most who shared the name. True, he took as many of his opponents alive as he did their corpses – and indeed the live ones were all that gave him a challenge, any more. True, he only took marks from the Department of Mysteries, who somehow made use of the information provided by Auror departments around the globe to find the most dangerous Dark wizard threats and eliminate them. But still, he killed or incapacitated people for money.

But it was better than the alternative.

After three years working "the beat" as an Auror, Kingsley promoted Harry to Head, a job that Harry quickly found consisted of attending meetings and assigning work to Aurors. Junior Aurors get the trash work, Senior Aurors the interesting work. Every day, the same thing. Paperwork and meetings. After a year of it, Harry had drafted his resignation when he received an interesting message from the previously nonfunctional television he found in his office. The Department of Mysteries called and gave him their proposition – work abroad, hunt Dark Wizards and other things that threaten Jolly Old England and its allies.

Harry had agreed with barely a thought, so numb was his mind from his job as Head. It was a job he was used to, one he could sink his teeth into. Hell, he'd practically been born and raised for the job. His kids were happy and healthy, and lovely; he skipped out of the office constantly to be with them, since Winky did the Head's job anyway. He saw Ron every day – at least until he, too, got bored of being an Auror and quit to work at the joke shop – and everyone else at least weekly at the Burrow.

The only problem, of course, was Ginny.

Maybe they'd rushed into things. Maybe the spice and excitement – sneaking into and out of restaurants to avoid being recognized by the droves of fans each of them had, her being a National Quidditch Player and Captain of the Holyhead Harpies and him the Chosen One – of their youth had been all that held them together. He was an adrenaline junkie, he readily admitted – his Quidditch dives told anyone that – so perhaps it was him getting bored with her just as he'd gotten bored with the monotony of duties as Head Auror.

Their marriage had lost its spark; now it consisted of merely going through the motions every day, like a routine. Harry hated routines. So the two barely spoke except at dinner, which was, without James home at least, mostly quiet and had many awkward silences and failed attempts to start a conversation. After all, he couldn't exactly tell her about how he'd Portkeyed to Rwanda to fight back the hedge-wizard insurgents all by his lonesome and returned in time for a late lunch with Ron. And her job was even more boring than Head Auror – watching Quidditch every once in a while was fine, but _daily_? Merlin, how tiresome! He'd have quickly grown to despise Quidditch, if that was his routine. She must have picked up on it, because her own descriptions at the dinner table were much shorter, terse, almost, than the vivid descriptions she submitted to the _Prophet_. He'd never known she had such skill with writing, along with Quidditch. Must've picked it up as Hermione's best friend or something.

Harry pushed thoughts of his failing marriage aside and concentrated once more on emptying the cabinet, now that he'd forced his lean and tone body – he needed to be in shape, after all, to lead a Nundu hunt – into the armor. Over the graphorn hide, including tight booties for his feet, he put on a loose and simple black robe – he needed a new one after almost every mission, so they were cheap – and an array of other equipment. Inside the stylish black dragon hide boots, he stored a short spare wand on his left shin and a seven and a half inch Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting knife strapped to his left ankle. Two rings, neither a wedding band, adorned his left hand outside his glove. One was a plain silver band, while the other held a single large sapphire set into a petite gold ring. More feminine than Harry would have liked, but he had taken it off a corpse, not designed it himself. His right hand was even more bejeweled: a thick thumb-ring with triangular patterns of different colored gold encircling it, an even thicker ring on his middle finger that looked to be a dozen separate thin bands, and on his pinky the most delicate ring, platinum with three diamonds, one of them blackened and burned while the other two were unmarked.

He strapped on a wand holster and his holly wand to his right forearm, and immediately the dull gray material – reminiscent of a certain Invisibility Cloak his father had once owned – disappeared from sight. He took up the few final items remaining in the cabinet and secured within it the Auror robes he'd discarded before. He slipped the set of dog tags, each bearing the first name of one of his beloved children, under the loose black robe, and slipped on the grey Unspeakable cloak, raising the hood. Over that, he slipped into what looked to be the back harness for a Muggle shotgun.

"Winky," Harry called to the formerly homeless House Elf; he'd acquired her soon after he became Head Auror, but she'd proven most useful once he started his other job. He continued after she arrived with a 'pop'. "Go ahead and finish this paperwork for me, would you? I'll be gone all day, so don't answer the door or anything until I get back." Winky smiled brightly at him and nodded, immediately making her way towards the desk. She'd learned more about paperwork and Ministry subtleties working for Crouch than Harry would ever know, which even in limited amount was far more than he wished he knew.

Picking up the docket of intelligence and the large brass ring, gripped in a fist, he said, "Depart," and was whisked away from the room with a hook behind his navel.

"Typical men, Ginny, leaving without a thought for the kids. Ugh! Technically I could fire them both! And I should! Making me late for that meeting with Kingsley…" Hermione said on the platform as her ex-husband and best friend Disapparated from the Platform. Ginny inwardly sighed – her best friend was typically boring, complaining about the same damn arguments almost every day that they were together. Oh, the difficulties of single parenting! Oh, Ron is teaching _my_ children such dreadful things! Oh, I emasculated every man I've dated after Ron, and haven't gotten a good shag in ten years! Did she even realize how petty everything was?

"Don't worry about it, Hermione, I can take Hugo. Lily was going to head over to Hannah and Neville's to play with Chardonnay –"

"Chapucine, Ginny. It's French, derived from some flower or something. You know how Neville is. And I'd appreciate it, thank you. Merlin, Kingsley's going to hex me if I don't pick up that report before I leave. Hugo, dear, give mummy a hug! I love you, play nice with the girls, and have fun! Thanks, Ginny!" Hermione quickly Apparated away, leaving Ginny to smile at the children, surreptitiously make an illegal Portkey without anyone on the quickly thinning platform, or her children, knowing, and taking them to the Longbottom estate with that same Portkey.

Ginny thanked Hannah for taking the kids, whom she assured Ginny were no problem, and Ginny Apparated back to Godric's Hollow to their cottage. A quick wave of her wand cleaned up the kitchen where Harry had made breakfast that morning – he usually did – and she marched right through the house to the backyard, where she mounted her broom for a quick fly.

It had been years since she was a professional Quidditch player, having given it up when she'd gotten the news of her pregnancy with James, but she still kept her flying abilities in shape. It was not long after, almost immediately after Lily was born nine years ago, actually, that Ginny realized how boring things were. In Hogwarts, after all, it had been one exciting thing after another; adventures with Harry, stories from Hermione, her prat brothers, even. But all that was gone now; except for the weekly Sunday family get-togethers at the Burrow, she hardly even saw her brothers or Hermione. She'd needed a change, a job, something to do. She considered going back to the Harpies, even coaching, perhaps, when He contacted her.

Who He was, she never knew, could never find out, despite several attempts. But the proposition He offered was good, good enough for her to take it. 'Make a difference,' he'd tempted. 'Save lives.' So she did. What she found out was that working for the International Confederation of Wizards' Security Council as an Agent was the most demanding and rewarding work of her life. Throwing herself, wits and magic, against deadly foes nearly every week. It was thrilling, dangerous, and part-time. She could still raise her kids while earning a living. She even came up with the perfect cover when she hired a few young witches to work on covering the Quidditch section of the _Daily Prophet_ and paid their salaries out of the _Prophet_'s payouts and, occasionally, her own pay.

Dragons gone wild in Romania. Erumpent stampede in Central Africa. Troll uprising in Mongolia. Dark Wizards in the jungles of Vietnam. It kept her on her toes, in fabulous shape, and prepared magically for every eventuality.

Now, the only thing wrong was Harry.

He was sweet, she supposed, and it wasn't like he was abusive or anything like that, Merlin no. He was just boring. Perfectly content with his job as a Ministry paper-pusher, just like Hermione. Maybe they were better for each other than they realized at Hogwarts, she thought with a bit of a bitter grin.

Not to get her wrong, she thought, their first few years together were amazing. Harry the young Auror, just out of training, darting all over the country – and world, when others heard of the Boy-Who-Lived becoming an Auror – and she the young Quidditch phenom of the Harpies – and soon after, Championship Enlgish National Team. They'd dropped into Muggle restaurants from their brooms, Apparated away from droves of news reporters, each worse than Rita Skeeter, and fallen terribly in love throughout their exciting exploits. Of course it couldn't last.

Harry had settled down quickly, when he was promoted. At first, he seemed to despise the job, complaining loudly and frequently of it being a "desk job", when he was still a young man craving action. She'd listened keenly, having started to think similarly in the year after Albus was born. But then, he'd grown used to it, becoming responsible, paper-pushing Harry. He acted like Percy, now, she thought bitterly. The Weasley pariah was on better terms with the family, attending functions and all that to satisfy Ma Weasley, but was still a prat.

Their marriage was on the rocks, she knew, but she just didn't think it mattered. It had been this way for nearly a decade, so what was going to change? A few quick spells from atop her broom later after a flyby and the targets beneath her hidden in the woods exploded one, two, three, four. Yeah, she still had it, she thought victoriously.

Her hairband, seemingly a typical Muggle piece of plastic, buzzed slightly. She tapped it with her wand and both sides extended, one over to her ear and the other further down, resembling a headset that Muggles used with electronics.

"Ginny, there's a new mission for you. Moriana Denours escaped from the prison you put her in two years ago in the Congo. She's stirring up trouble in Nigeria, now." Ginny's eyes narrowed dangerously as she heard the news from Him.

"Alright, I accept the mission. This bitch is going down. Again."

"I was hoping you'd say that. The take is only twenty thousand…seems the African governments aren't yet concerned or impressed by her, but her actions could definitely destabilize the region. The Intel and Portkey should be at the usual place. Good luck." The hair band shrunk to normal size and she flew back to the cottage, retrieving the packet of intelligence work and small agate Portkey from a tree stump in the backyard where they always sent it. Giving it a quick look over, she headed into the shed where she kept a "broken broom" collection in honor of her Quidditch days. Or at least, so she'd told Harry.

In actuality, a quick wave of her wand – her primary wand that she usually kept with her – revealed a shelf full of equipment that put a smirk on her face as she caught her appreciative eye. She stripped out of her casual clothing quickly, donning the sleeveless silvery-blue dragon hide top and matching pants. It was a good thing this job kept her in such great shape, because any weight would have made the armor nearly impossible to put on. On top of that she put on her black dragon hide boots and matching twin wand holsters, one on each forearm. She kept her hair band, which acted like a communication device, even though she'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of her way. She put in three different earrings – two mismatched studs, black and red stones in them, and one ring in the upper cartilage of her right ear – and slipped a heart pendant around her neck. On her right hand went a group of five silver rings that adorned each finger, linked together by a slender chain that sat in her palm; her left was fairly plain with only a single ring, not her wedding ring but a silver ring with a single, heart-shaped diamond set in it. On top of all that, she pulled on a mottled green robe, which had obviously been the subject of several repair charms and was at the end of its days, and a black leather floor-length coat.

She put away the robes she'd worn previously and reactivated the "broken broom" collection illusion before saying, "Activate," and disappearing instantly.

Harry found himself appearing in the middle of a fairly sweltering forest. The thick trees and bushy ground covering would have left a far too obvious trail if he cut them down, so he set off in the direction the map indicated the river was in as he trekked through the underbrush. It wasn't a rainforest, he didn't think, but a jungle not too far off from one either. Thank Merlin for the Cooling charms on his boots and cloak that kept the worst of the heat and humidity from him. He checked his docket, and sure enough it listed the Portkey destination – looked like a few miles from the nearest watchtower, to ensure that he didn't gather too much attention. He was right by the riverside – the Niger River, according to the map – which he surveyed carefully.

Nothing in sight, nor anyone; the reputed watchtower in the distance certainly wasn't visible through the foliage, so he assumed he would be safe. With a wave and a jab of his wand, a wide rowboat appeared in the river, so he jumped the two feet and got in. It was a bit crude, but then he'd never needed to fancy up his conjurations, so it suited him just fine. Plain steel, nearly five feet across and ten long, it should survive the ride. He whirled his wand quickly in a circle while muttering under his breath, and he saw the water stir underneath the boat.

It was a bit more delicate and powerful than the charm he'd seen Hagrid use when he was eleven, but it was much the same – which caused Harry to wonder what a half-giant with a second year education was doing with a spell similar to this one. Harry sped along up the river, heading northwest on the river, approaching the first watchtower from downwind. He stuck fairly close to the shore nearest the watchtower, so that the trees might provide some concealment.

The wind whipping in his face, mostly from the speed of the bouncing rowboat flying against the current of the river, Harry maneuvered the boat silently to the edge of the water, Vanishing it as he leapt off. He Disillusioned himself and with a silent wave of his wand was enveloped within a Silencing charm almost instantly, and stalked predatorily through the dense underbrush along the side of the river before it gave way to more manageable tall trees. The light, which had been bright as he boated up the river, was now blocked by the thick leafy canopy. He was thankful for that canopy, which would have made it difficult or impossible for the watchman on the nearby tower to know anything of his approach up the river.

He could see the construct now, high in a tree off in the distance, little more than a few boards lashed together into a floor from where the black man in robes looked out, rather bored. With his holly wand, Harry enveloped the platform in a silencing charm, immediately withdrawing the weapon he kept sheathed in the shotgun harness on his back. Inside was a decidedly odd looking device, which combined an enormous Muggle scope mounted on the stock of a rifle, including the trigger assembly. Instead of a long barrel and silencer, as one would expect from a typical sniper rifle, this only had a thin piece of wood taking the place of the barrel. Taking quick aim down the barrel, Harry sent two spells at the watchman, who'd immediately noticed the sudden silence of the jungle around him and panicked.

Harry loved the inexperienced peons employed by his adversaries, who lived to serve no purpose but to occasionally better the aim of a more inexperienced Hit Wizard. The Stunner and very weak Banishing charm allowed gravity to do its work as the lookout landed on his neck from the thirty-foot fall, eliminating the need for Harry cast anything Unforgivable. For an experienced wizard like Harry, shooting off those two spells that had ended the life of the lookout was hardly more complicated than breathing.

A quick Featherweight charm on himself, after Disillusioning the body of the unfortunate guard, and he climbed the tower like an energetic ape, keeping the odd bit of combined magic and technology ready. From the guard's tower, Harry could easily see the encampment of Moriana Denours' rebels. A close observation through the scope on his long-range sniper wand – though of course he set a Supersensory Charm around himself to keep him preternaturally alert to nearby danger – and he was all set up to scout out the positions and movements of the camp. Taking out a Muggle notebook and pen, he made a few careful sketches and indicated each movement to ensure that he properly kept track of them, meticulously noting each important element.

He had learned of the importance of this kind of work long ago, back even before he'd become the Head Auror. He'd been impatient, petulantly believing each conflict would end in a predictable duel like it had with Voldemort. Like it had with several other Dark wizards he'd tracked down and fought. But one clever muggle-born Dark wizard had shown him the error of that thought process. He had been thinking too much like a wizard, and it had cost him the lives of two friends, good Aurors. He was thankful that he hadn't been paired with Ron that night, and ashamed of that feeling as he stoically attended the funerals of the two fallen comrades.

The loss, however, clearly pointed out his stupidity. Yes, it turned out that he, or his two companions, could have out-dueled the Dark wizard. But the wizard had expected that, and had set Muggle bombs up to kill the Aurors who invaded his compound. Harry had eventually completed the mission alone, killing the wizard despite the Muggle guns and grenades possessed by his guards.

_The doors to the secret office of the Department, known only to a few outside of the researchers employed by them, slammed open as a man wearing an Auror's yellow cloak over the tatters of other garments strode in._

"_Is there a problem, Mr. Potter?" A man Harry recognized as Croaker asked him calmly in his guttural tone. Croaker was one person who the Aurors frequently had contact with_

"_Yes. I need to see you in your office." Harry said brusquely; he was in quite a bit of pain despite the Pain-Numbing Potion, a more potent Pain-Relieving Potion, that he'd taken after he'd sustained the burns and other injuries._

"_I keep few secrets from my employees. I assure you, you may trust them with whatever you have to say." Croaker remained calm despite the obvious frustration and anger emanating from Harry._

"_Fine. I need a favor."_

"_Inter-departmental cooperation was never a specialty of ours, Mr. Potter. I'm afraid I rather doubt we can help you much." Croaker said in a dismissive tone. Harry could almost see the Malfoy-esque smirk behind the obscuring charm on his cloak, and it made him want to take off the smug man's head._

"_It involves a rather challenging research project that I think your men might enjoy." Harry said temptingly. He knew from dealing with Hermione all those years that to a scientist such as the Department was rumored to employ, challenges couldn't go passed up._

"…_We're listening, Mr. Potter." And they took the bait, just as he knew they would. Smug bastards._

"_In the fight today, two good Aurors, my partners, were killed by modified Muggle weaponry. It was crude, though, magical triggers for Muggle bombs and that sort of thing." Several other Unspeakables had left their desks and were closer to Harry – he noticed quill and parchment moving as he spoke._

"_I think that you boys could do much better, have more complex things inspired from Muggles, who are quite ingenious in their methods of killing each other. I have a few ideas, of course. Simple ones like making something similar to a grenade – basically a Blasting charm or ten – put on a small object, I suppose. Protection from further Muggle weaponry would also be good, I think…and finally, I need a long-range wand." At this, Harry could almost see several of the Muggle-born researchers' faces light up – apparently some of them knew what a sniper rifle was._

"_This does promise to be most interesting, Mr. Potter…an entire new realm of research for us, into Muggle objects…we can make no promises, of course, but you may hear back from us in the future." Croaker said in dismissal. Harry grinned and left the Department to file the official report for the attack with the Auror Office._

Three months later, he remembered, two researchers from the Department of Mysteries had delivered to him in his private office – perk of being one of the most successful Senior Aurors on the force – the prototype that he carried to this day.

"_And you two are the only ones who know about this prototype?"_ _Harry asked carefully after finishing the inspection and shooting off a few spells. The wand didn't suit him as well as his trusty holly and phoenix feather wand, but neither was it a terrible fit, with as much modification as they had been forced to do._

"_Absolutely, this could be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands, so its production would be carefully monitored." Harry nodded in agreement before whispering, "_Imperio_" twice in rapid succession at each of the researchers, who buckled to his will. Harry didn't often use the Unforgivable Curses, but since he gained familiarity with this particular curse back when he was seventeen, he'd used it from time to time when he saw no alternative._

"_Draw Pensieve memories of the creation process of the long-range wand." He said calmly as they both complied._

"_Obliviate," He said as both of their faces went blank underneath the Obscuring charms on their cloaks. "Yes, well thank you gentlemen for the update. I understand the difficulty you must have had with that research, and it must have been frustrating for it to have been in vain."_

"_Of course, Mr. Potter. We could continue, if you'd like." One of them said, perfectly in line with the false memories he'd implanted as he erased the true ones._

"_No, that won't be necessary. Give Mr. Croaker my regards." Harry said with a smile as he waved them out._

Harry was fairly certain that Croaker knew what he had done and didn't particularly care, which suited Harry just fine. Those two particular researchers should have learned to be more wary, any way, he reasoned, especially after Harry joined the Department in a more frequent fashion; he'd strived to learn the identity of almost everyone he worked with, and those two – Duncan Inglebee and Penelope Clearwater – had attended Hogwarts with him, both Ravenclaws. Most of the rest of the Department was older, but Harry had found that the two youngest, often paired together and possibly romantically linked – Harry's intelligence sources were uncertain – often were inspired with the cleverest ideas from modern Muggle devices and worked overtime to finish prototypes faster. Coincidentally, he had extracted Pensieve memories and _Obliviate_d the pair many times throughout his career as an assassin.

Finally, Harry's observations of the target camp were at an end and he was ready to begin his assault. "_Homenum Revelio_" he said one last time, sweeping the area for any last-minute invisible arrivals. Sighting down the scope and focusing the reticule on the body – much more effective target for magic than the small head that Muggle snipers often targeted – fifty meters away. He muttered "_Avada Kedavra_" and a sickly green light glowed brightly on the end of the long-range wand. He waited until the sentry approached the one part of his route that couldn't be seen by the rest of the camp until he gently squeezed the trigger and sent off the curse, which flew from his wand and struck the man dead; his fall was almost noiseless, and Harry smirked at his success.

His assault began, he whispered the Killing Curse again as the green light lit up the end of the wand. He was just about to release it when a previously unseen figure in a black duster swooped down from the sky flying on a broom and launching curses with abandon.

"Bugger it all to bloody hell," he swore violently, enraged by the hours of observation work now all shot to hell by some foolish bint – likely a family member or some damn thing out for revenge.

He dropped out of his tower after silently putting a Featherweight charm on himself so that his impact with the ground was negligible and hit the ground running; from twenty meters, he cut the first resistance he met in half with a nonverbal _Sectumsempra_ and ran on. Little did his vapid wife know, but he only suggested the middle name of his youngest boy because of many times he'd used the bastard's spells.

He quickly came under fire from around the perimeter; the three watchtowers other than the one he'd been in had spotted him, and decided to attempt to kill him. How quaint.

"_Confringo_," he loudly called three times, centering each massive explosion on the top of one of the towers. Each was engulfed, and the lives of the rebellious terrorists ended in matching hellacious fireballs. He had barely halted his advance upon the encampment, but quickly resumed it, his robe flowing behind him sinisterly.

Finally, he came upon what must have been one of the leaders of the terrorist cell, because the man was a fair duelist, turning aside two Harry's spells. Smirking at the challenge – not that it was much of one – he decided to play a little.

He threw two harmless hexes – _Rictumsempra_ – while simultaneously bundling them with Transfiguration spells, which basically disguised them. It was a trick he'd learned after he'd captured Antonin Dolohov in Basque territory six years ago. The cunning Death Eater was the most challenging opponent that Harry had ever faced – he'd faced down Kingsley, Tonks, and even Mad-Eye single-handedly, and was likely the number three Death Eater behind Malfoy and Bellatrix – so Harry kept him alive in acknowledgement of his skill. Of course, the lessons the old man had taught Harry, under coercion while he was his prisoner, had helped to encourage Harry's first and only pro-bono work – raiding Malfoy manor and killing Lucius in a vicious duel that left the still-respected Malfoy scion naked, splayed open with his entrails strewn across the master bedroom, and four bodyguards also naked and dead in the room with him. It had been quite the tale, reported in the _Prophet_ the next day, of how Lucius' torrid affairs with several of his guards had come to light and the jealous lovers killed each other, Lucius himself, and themselves.

In either case, the reflected Transfiguration spells did their job and the tree on the left of the opponent and the supply cart on his right sprung into action. The tree wrapped five branches around him, immobilizing him, while one of the cart's handles slammed like a bat onto his right arm, loudly breaking it and causing him to drop his wand. Harry smirked as he nonverbally sent out Dolohov's favorite Rupturing Curse and a burst of purple flame impacted his enemy, who dropped like a rock.

The curse brought back memories, like it always did, of the battle in the Department of Mysteries where Hermione and himself were both struck by the deadly curse. His nostalgia, however, was soon cut short as three curses were sent at his back.

An upwards flick of his wand and a thought of _Locomotor_ sent those curses flying wildly up to bother the mysterious flying guest who'd interrupted his carefully laid assault, and a broad slice of his own wand along with a thought of _Sectumsempra_ ended the lives of the three attackers as they were brutally eviscerated, despite raising paltry shields. He grinned once more from the adrenaline buzzing in his veins and ran inside the building that was being aerially assaulted.

His counterpart in the air – she must have been some sort of amateur assassin sent after Moriana – had obviously come to the same conclusion that Harry himself did while surveying the camp as to the location of the Dark leader. And apparently she also wasn't quite as incompetent as he expected, because he had felt the familiar force of an Anti-Apparition Jinx when he attempted to Apparate up to the Dark witch's location. Likely a similar prevention for a Portkey escape was in place. Harry snapped one off anyway, just in case, as he ran up the stairs; two guards had died quickly on his run from the door to the stairs.

"Ah, it is you, Mr. Mysterious." His quarry said in her sultry voice, the hint of a French accent masking her English. Moriana had called him that once, those many years ago, when he refused to give up his name to her. Thankfully it hadn't spread to any other criminal elements – what an embarrassing nickname. She, like many, loved the pre-battle banter. Harry forewent that for pre-battle killing; it was cleaner.

To demonstrate his preference, he snapped off a quick, "_Avada Kedavra_" at one of the chanting guards. It was some kind of shield chant, he thought, which was likely holding off the bombardment. The lone remaining chanter sweated just a bit more as the spell became more difficult to maintain alone.

"Ah, always the quiet one. Never any fun, not like _her_. You were much more skilled, though." She was, of course, referring to his last attempt to get her. It was much like this, he reflected in an instant, only his carefully laid out strategic slaughter was completed before he was interrupted. After a furious duel with Moriana where he easily had the upper hand, he was distracted as a previously unseen attacker blasted both of them with a well-cast Blasting Curse, knocking him over for a moment before he got back up. Momentarily disoriented, he was stunned by the skilled assailant from a blow to the head – the only area not covered by Dragon hide, at the time – and left to wake up, alone, four hours later. He'd been informed that Moriana was turned over to Nurmengard prison by someone and the bounty given to them.

He gave Moriana no satisfaction of a response, but merely nonverbally set up his own Anti-Apparition Jinx and a few other surprises for anyone who might curse him unexpectedly, this time.

"Oh yes, you were, and I told her as much. If she hadn't surprised you, she never would have gotten me. I think I also told her that she might want to stay away from you, from then on, because you'd have tried to kill her." Harry remained silent, merely staring at her coldly, his wand poised and ready to finally end her life. Anyone else would have feared to meet her gaze – she was an accomplished Legilimens – but Harry's Occlumency was as unshakably solid as it had been when he was seventeen; more so, with so much practice. Moriana's eyes flashed, suddenly, and she grinned maliciously.

"I guess she didn't listen, because she's out there – it's her, on the broom." It was only for an instant, and he would curse himself later for doing it, but his eyes unconsciously glanced over to the window she indicated.

It was long enough for the Dark witch, however, who shot a deep red curse – Harry would later know it to be _Exarmo_, the Disarming charm that Dark wizards preferred, as it usually blasted off a few fingers or an entire hand if it connected – at him in his distraction. He snapped a shield up, of course – he was the fastest wand of anyone he'd met, after all – at the same time that an explosion rocked the building.

Thinking quickly, he fell to the ground as he slid his wand back into his holster and drew his shorter wand from his left shin holster, more concealable, from his boot before the dust could clear. When the short wand was hidden up his sleeve, it gave the impression of being unarmed; if there was something that Harry loved most about fighting, it was when enemies underestimated him. He pretended to cough from the dust, and saw that the entire roof had been blown off, and the chanting guard was now dead.

It took quite a bit longer than Ginny expected for her to overwhelm the shield erected by the guards around Moriana's building. And apparently there was even competition: someone who took advantage of her assault and was killing off all of the wizards and witches around the camp. Ginny paid the second-rate glory thief little mind as she blasted the shield with _Confringo_ explosions.

"Bloody hell!" She swore under her breath as three curses narrowly missed her, and only then thanks to a sharp dive on her Firebolt. She must have been complacent in her broom evasion flight pattern – it would take a frightening skill to actually hit her while she was flying, after all, unless hundreds of wizards just randomly lit up the sky with curses. No, it must have been a mistake on her part; certainly none of the little resistance group was at all skilled like that.

Another glance down at the ground, as she continued her assault on the surprisingly resilient shield, showed that the other hitter had just killed three men on the ground with a single curse. It splayed them open rather demonstrably, in fact, and she had to admire his obvious skill.

A moment later, he had run into the building she was bombarding, and the light from two curses signified more death within. She quickly paused in her attack to strengthen the Anti-Apparition Jinx and Anti-Portkey Jinx that she'd cast earlier, and then continued. Almost instantly, she felt that she was making progress on the shield – had that other assassin killed some of the casters or something? His quick progress was at least mildly disconcerting to the flying witch, who briefly considered that she might be outclassed.

Another minute and the shield was gone, victim to her assault, and then the roof exploded from two nearly simultaneous Blasting Curses at opposite ends. Ginny flew threw the open hole wand blazing, quickly tying up and disarming Moriana.

"Ah, Moriana Denours, such a pleasure to see you again!" Ginny said with mock excitement, though an eager light did shine in her eyes. The other assassin, on the ground and unarmed – what an amateur! – was quickly tied up. Ginny almost wished she could see the look on his face behind the Obscuring Charm he wore. It was standard for an assassin to wear such a thing, of course, though her own was only marginally effective, her brilliant red hair giving away a visible clue to anyone who got too terribly close.

"Sorry, there, kid, but I got here first and I'm clearly more than a bit more skilled. Better luck next time," she said, addressing the other assassin. His grey cloak hid any distinguishing marks or anything else she might use to identify him – at least he'd gotten that right in his training.

"But don't you recognize him, Miss Scarlet?" She barely fought the urge to Bat-Bogey Moriana for using that most ridiculous nickname she'd come up with; the other assassin snorted lightly.

"You two have quite the history, for international assassins, after all." Ginny took one more look at Grey Cloak and remembered another assassin wearing such a cloak four years ago. Another assassin she'd gotten the better of and left unconscious, if she correctly recalled.

"Oh…wow! You're still alive? Kinda surprising, considering how sloppy you were four years ago. Guess you're lucky…so I'll call you Lucky!" Ginny said brightly; the other did not even acknowledge her with as much as a movement, staying deathly still and just watching her from behind his Obscuring charm.

"As I told you years ago, Scarlet, he is your better. Last time, you merely got the jump on him after a furious duel. I daresay you won't be as good fortuned this time." Moriana was obviously deluded. She already had him tied up and defenseless, what more could she need luck for?

And then, he moved.

It wasn't to struggle with the bonds she'd placed on him, for he'd somehow cut those and was merely holding the illusion of being bound.

Oh no, his movement was to cast a spell with the wand in his right hand that was clearly empty only a fraction of a second earlier. Damn, he was good.

And fast. The Bludgeoning spell hit her like a wayward freight car, flinging her out through the rubble of wall that remained on the floor of the building. She heard ribs crack at the initial impact of the spell, and thought she heard a few more snap from behind as she landed, hard, on the burning remains of a wooden cart outside. Everything went black for a moment as she fought the urge to lose consciousness and focused on the pain around her thoracic cavity as a focus, a reminder that she was alive.

A tingling in her left arm made her open her eyes, only to see that she'd had the good fortune to remain mostly out of reach of the flames, except that arm, which had already reddened to the point of blistering. She yelped and tried to jump up, only succeeding in moving her arm at least out of the fire and having the world swim around her as consciousness threatened to slip away again.

She saw two figures levitate gently out of the building she'd blown to hell, and drew her twin wands menacingly. Few wizards or witches fought with two wands, which lent her an unusual style that surprised many of her foes, lending her an upper hand in battle.

"Oh good, you're still alive. I told you it was far too easy." Moriana said to the silent assassin, who had bound the Dark witch nearly head to toe in thick black ropes, making her look somewhat comical. His wand turned to focus on her as she recognized the motions of an Anti-Apparition Jinx and an Anti-Portkey Jinx.

"_Confringo!_" She led with her right wand, the immediately brought up her left and silently thought, _Sectumsempra_. Once again, her nontraditional style won the day, as her opponents right shoulder took a graze from her spell. He looked at it, then back to her, his expression inscrutable underneath the Obscruing charm.

Curses flew with abandon from his wand as she fought in vain to keep them at bay. Her back and ribs burned with every wave of her two wands. Her pathetic attempts at offensive spells with her right wand while she kept up a variety of specialized shields with her right only ended when a curse from him hit her like electricity across her left arm, causing it to spasm erratically.

"You're not terrible, so I'm going to give you some advice," he said calmly, the first words he spoke, as he easily kept her on the defensive with a blistering hail of curses. It was only because she was already so injured that it was easy for him, she insisted.

"Wielding two wands is almost unheard of for a reason. It slows down your casting, because you have to focus on which wand you want each curse to come out of. Though I admit it allows for a surprise every now and again." He finished with another Bludgeoning spell, this time hitting her right in the skull. Ginny dropped heavily to the ground, her last sight that of Moriana's smirking face atop a bundle of black ropes.

"Well, it looks like our time together is coming to an end." Moriana said with a bit of a sigh and a sultry look at Harry, who rolled his eyes behind the Obscuring Charm.

"Shut up, or I'll Bludgeon your head like that girl's. Now, get in the cell." The Nigerian prison was quite unlike what Harry expected – it was state of the art, utilizing Muggle technology as well as complex magical protections. Both were probably bought from Gringott's, who'd expanded quickly into the Muggle world of investments and thus was a crucial link for many wizards to Muggle technologies.

"Oh yes, you were a bit rough with her," Harry didn't favor her with a response as she paused here, so she continued, "But you didn't kill her, I noticed. You must be going soft on me, Mr. Mysterious." She hadn't gotten in the cell as Harry told her, so a quick silent _Expulso_ tossed her painfully past the ten feet to the wall. She got back up with a smirk as Harry turned, and called out to him as he left.

"We'll be seeing each other again soon!" Had he been intending to Apparate back to England, he would likely have left half of himself as she distracted him. As it was, the first Portkey he attempted to make was a total failure, and he glanced back at her from under his hood. She gave nothing away, only smirking cruelly in her superiority as he finally left when the Portkey departed.

Once more in his Head Auror office, Harry found a neat pile of all the day's paperwork completed and filled out. Winky probably managed it with a snap of her fingers in the first five minutes.

Harry was half out of his graphorn hide armor – once again, it had served him well, he had barely a bruise despite taking that Blasting Curse that had left a sizable burn in another of his cheap black robes – when a knock on the door nearly caused him to curse aloud.

"Harry Potter! Open this door! Harry! Damnit, I'm your boss!" Hermione's voice screeched. Harry threw on his Auror robes over his graphorn pants, closed the closet door, and opened the door.

"Well, finally you open the door, thank you _so_ much!" She said, barging in. Stacy the secretary shot an apologetic look at Harry as he looked at both her and Ron quickly. Ron had obviously been eating his first lunch, which had been quickly been put away in some drawer in his desk when his ex-wife and Department Head burst into the Auror office.

"Unavailable all day, Harry? Just what paperwork did you need to do, anyway?" Hermione demanded. Harry wearily pushed Winky's completed pile over to her, acting as though he'd just spend three hours filling it out, instead of fighting a terrorist camp.

"Oh…well, that is a full day, isn't it? And you got this all done this morning?" Hermione looked mildly impressed at him.

"What can I do for you today, Director?" Harry said snidely.

"I find out you're skiving off two meetings today, Harry, and that makes ten in the past three weeks. Kingsley's started asking questions, and I can't cover your arse any more!" Hermione must be serious, if she resorts to profanity, "What is it you need? Another secretary to just do paperwork? More Aurors – even though we have twice the number we used to? I need you at those meetings, Harry, as Head Auror it's your job."

"I hate meetings, Hermione. Nothing gets done, all people do is talk, while I can be here actually getting some work done. Ron gives me a few reports on what you need, and I do it. I think it's a good system." Harry said amicably to his friend, leaning back in his high-backed cushy chair with his hands behind his head casually.

"Harry, you're Head Auror. You need to be there to make decisions, give opinions…you're the expert in your field, and you need to be on hand for meetings!" Hermione said, still flustered. Harry knew exactly what the problem was, not that she'd admit it – Ron had spent the entire meeting focused on her, and probably asked her out afterward. Ron was the best mate a guy could hope for, but he got pretty pathetic when his ex-wife was around.

"Hermione, Ron has full authority to make decisions as my proxy, and he's an expert for opinions, too. Now what's the real problem?" Harry asked with a smirk.

"Ron Weasley is not Head Auror, you are!" She squeaked. Harry smiled at her frustration and leaned forward in his chair.

"Hermione, I like to give my employees ample opportunity for advancement. I'm grooming Ron for an Assistant Head, and I think that the bureaucracy will be an important element of that position, so I need to prepare him for it." Harry said happily. This only infuriated his friend even more.

"Harry Potter, you are not shirking your duties by creating a position and promoting Ron! I'm your boss, and I'm overruling you!" Hermione said, red-faced. Harry was silent for a moment, then leaned back once more in his big chair.

"Hermione, I'm really busy today; at two, I've got to induct that potion-brewer into the Order of Merlin for that wound-closing potion that saved Dawson and Hicks three months ago. So if you are finished complaining about your problems with your ex-husband, I'll go over your head and get Ron's new position approved by Kingsley and we can finish this meeting." Hermione's mouth opened in argument just before Harry Banished a Portkey teddy bear that took her back to her own office.

A job well done in minimizing the time spent in a meeting, Harry threw some Floo powder into his fire grate and set about making it official that he never attended another Ministry meeting with a short call to Kingsley.

**A/N: **Hope you enjoyed, on to the last!


	7. Thank God You're Here

**A/N:** This last entry will be a combination of three "Thank God You're Here" prompts from . They're silly little ~1000 word entries of things you wouldn't normally write, just to get used to the characters by putting them in odd situations. Hope you enjoy them.

_**Seven Deadly Drabbles**_

_Thank God You're Here_

"Mrs. Potter?" The Healer asked the perky young redhead. Ginny was dressed only in a hospital gown, and already had her feet in the stirrups, giving the Healer a full view.

"Yes, finally you're here." Ginny said, leaning upright to look at the Healer over her spread legs.

"Yes, well there was a bit of an emergency from some cursed toilet seats –"

"Well I'm here because I haven't been able to get pregnant yet!" Ginny interrupted, bored with the Healer's excuse.

"…Alright Mrs. Potter, let's take a look, then." As the Healer ran her wand around Ginny's belly to diagnose her uterus and ovaries – the principle suspects in cases of infertility, she asked a few questions.

"Now how long have you and your partner been attempting to conceive?" The Healer asked.

"My _husband_, Harry Potter, and I have sex EVERY NIGHT!" Ginny said fiercely, displaying her redheaded temper.

"…Alright, Mrs. Potter. That really doesn't tell me anything, though. How many months? Have you been tracking your cycle?" Ginny sighed, and the Healer had a distinct impression that she was rolling her eyes.

"Obviously if we're having sex EVERY NIGHT – and we are, and it's FANTASTIC! – then I don't need to. My mum never did, and she had _loads_ of kids! What's your name? You aren't a very good Healer, are you?" Ginny snapped waspishly.

"My name is Healer Tam, Mrs. Potter, and…I think I may have found your problem!" The Healer had moved on from her ovaries and uterus to her vagina itself, and the wand immediately glowed a burning red.

"Mrs. Potter, have you been having itching or burning sensations in your vagina, specifically when you pee? Any unusual secretions?" The Healer asked quickly, waving her wand for a few more thorough diagnostic charms.

"Eww, that's gross! And maybe…I don't really check when I pee, that's weird!" The Healer barely held back a sigh of frustration as she continued ruling things out.

"This is so unusual, Mrs. Potter…it reacts like a venereal disease, but I've ruled out most of the common ones." The healer had pulled out a parchment, and seemed to be ruling out most of the list.

"Have either you or your husband had sexual relations of any sort with either a chimera or lizard?" Ginny's eyes flashed with anger as she sat up to yell at the Healer.

"NO! This is ridiculous! I want a new doctor!" The Healer ignored her outrage, but her eyes lit up with an idea as she finished the list on the parchment.

"One moment, Mrs. Potter, I think I may have it. I'll be back in just a moment!" The Healer left the room with a spring in her step.

"I dunno what she's so bloody _excited_ about…must have been a Ravenclaw…" Ginny whispered, alone in the room and growing bored.

"Mrs. Potter!" Healer Tam said as reentered the room holding one of the largest tome's Ginny'd ever seen – it was, in fact, exactly 13 pages longer than _Hogwarts, A History_.

"Well? What is it, can you cure it? I want babies!" Ginny said excitedly, finally getting somewhere with the annoying Healer.

"Well, Mrs. Potter, I'm not sure – we have no test for this, since I'm sure it'd be a unique case…and I would like your permission to publish a case study about it, actually – but I read this book – Hermione Granger's _A Succinct History of Harry Potter: the Muggle-born's Guide to Strange Happenings When You Become A Wizard or Witch_. It has details of Harry's every adventure at Hogwarts, you know." Ginny did, in fact, know. Hermione had spent years writing the book, and conferred with Harry at the _oddest_ hours of the night. She huffed in assent at the Healer.

"Well it reminded me that both you and Harry had some contact with the dark wizard Voldemort. I believe that if those residual energies came in contact in intimate situations, then perhaps it could effect the tissue in question – as it turns out, it mirrors a terrible Chlamydia infection. I'm not sure how yourself and Mr. Potter were continuing to have sex, quite honestly, as it must have been quite uncomfortable." Ginny reddened slightly at being caught out in her lie, but said nothing.

"What does that even mean?" She asked skeptically. The Healer bit her lower lip for a moment as she considered the best way to deliver the news.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Potter, but I believe you have a venereal Voldemort infection in your vagina. The negative energy of it is causing your infertility."

Ginny's eyes watered slightly at the thought, and she haltingly asked, "Can you cure it? When can I have my babies?"

The Healer's smile dropped, and she said, "I'm sorry Mrs. Potter. We'll do our best, but there's no real precedent for this kind of venereal curse. If it were any other woman, Mr. Potter would be fine, but you…I'm sorry." The Healer left the room just as she heard Ginny's whisper.

"But what about poor James Arthur and Albus Severus? And little Lily Molly…and Remus Orion, Colin Nymphadora, and Ted Griphook?"

When the door closed, Healer Tam walked to her next patient and silently thought, 'With baby names like those, maybe it's better if she _didn't_ have kids…'

Neville Longbottom's only respite was Herbology.

Professor Sprout had always liked him – he was a promising student and had, in her opinion, the personality of a Hufflepuff – and his skill meant that he wasn't ridiculed like in most of his other classes.

It was little surprise, then, that he used Greenhouse Three for his clandestine meeting place with his girlfriend.

"I just don't understand why you have to be so belligerent in class, Neville." She said sweetly as she dabbed some dittany on his shoulder, where his latest scar was slowly healing; the Carrows never let him go to Madam Pomfrey.

He jerked slightly as she rubbed a particularly tender spot, and replied, "Someone has to, Hannah. I mean, you remember Harry in Umbridge's class – he never would have let –"

"Neville, you aren't Harry Potter! And he's gone…how do you know he'll ever be back?" Neville's face hardened at this. Many of his classmates were losing faith; some claimed that Harry had been killed, while others thought he was hiding, afraid.

"We don't know, Hannah. But we can hope – and we don't have to be Harry Potter to make a difference!" Hannah, a bit teary-eyed, grabbed him in a fierce hug that once again tore open the wound on his shoulder.

To steady himself from the pain, he tried to clutch the bench he was sitting upon, but accidentally put his hand on a ceramic pot that shattered.

"Neville? We'll never know when our time will come, will we? One minute you might be sitting in class, and the next…the Carrows could take things too far!" She tried to leap into his arms, but he wasn't expecting it, and his head fell back into the stalks of the Honey Suckling Hemerocallis behind him; its yellow lily flowers spilled gobs of honey over both of the teenagers and the bench.

"Yuck!" She eyed the sticky substance all over Neville's hair, face, and pants with a depressed sigh – the greenhouse was far from the ideal setting for her romantic tryst, but it was all they had.

She leaned in and kissed Neville passionately, the sweet taste of honey flooding both their senses, and he was for a moment too shocked at her boldness to reciprocate; they'd kissed a few times before, but it was usually a shy thing, far from the aggressive lip-lock in which they were currently engaged.

Hannah's robe slipped from her shoulders – it too was covered in sticky honey, so this actually took a bit of doing – and flung it, covering up the nearby Venomous Tentacula that had been drawn to the blood leaking from Neville's shoulder; it visibly pouted before going back to its usual pot.

"Umm…H-Hannah?" Neville squeaked. Hannah had straddled him, now, and was unbuttoning her blouse. "Is there a leak of Amorous Magnosea Pollen?" He whispered furiously, trying to understand her actions.

"Don't you get it, Neville? The Carrows could kill you at any time – you could be the next disappearance! I won't let you disappear without knowing how I feel about you!" She kissed him again as she grinded against him, and he almost gasped as a shiver went down his spine.

Hannah stopped, and looked down at him oddly.

"That wasn't…you aren't, I mean…you aren't finished yet, right?" Disappointment was a bit evident in her voice.

"No," he stuttered. He wasn't sure if he was, but didn't want to tell her that. She traced a line down his stomach then, and undid his pants.

"Neville! Take me now, I'm ready!" She suddenly turned and lay in the dirt of the main trough on the workbench – her skirt was hiked high, and she wasn't wearing any panties.

Neville almost fainted when he saw her bare ass, and reflexively shut his eyes, unsure if he was supposed to look.

"Neville," Hannah called somewhat impatiently, "Put it in me!"

Neville tried to hurriedly lower his pants, but tripped and landed in the Honey Suckling Hemerocallis; the honey went all over his stomach and groin, making a bit of a mess; he further complicated the process by rubbing his hands in the dirt to rid them of honey, which only made them dirty and sticky.

Finally, he got back up and walked over to Hannah, who was still lying on the ground, but was now turned upward with her legs spread. Neville hurriedly closed his eyes once more, not wanting her to change her mind about this whole thing in case he wasn't supposed to look at her.

The sprinkler system chose that moment to go off, squirting the teens with freezing water. Neville was so shocked that he tripped once more and fell on top of Hannah. He looked down, and realized that his dick had been buried in something squishy.

"H-hannah? Am I?" She looked at his oddly, and then down between them.

"No, Neville. That's the mud." Sheepishly, he removed himself from the mud, and used his discarded robe to wipe his cock of the mud. Since it was also coated in honey, this was only marginally effective, but he ignored it and, looking Hannah in the eyes, once again thrust his hips.

A moment passed, and Hannah exhaled a breath Neville hadn't realized she was holding.

Another moment passed, and Neville realized he wasn't quite sure what to do next.

"Is anyone in here?" A voice Neville recognized as Professor Sprout's called out. Hannah's eyes widened, but both of the teens froze.

Neville finally whispered, "It is in you, honey, or the mud?"

"Me," she gasped.

"Well I might as well put it back in the mud." Neville continued, extracting himself from her.

"A greenhouse wasn't a great place for our first time, was it?" Hannah said, looking a bit ashamed as she saw the site of their attempt at lovemaking. It was a mess, with at least three expensive and potentially dangerous plants crushed.

Neville shook his head morosely, and hiked up his pants.

Hannah bit her bottom lip and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear as she offered another suggestion.

"There's always Hagrid's pumpkin patch…"

As Harry left the common room after the confrontation with Hermione, he nearly shivered with frustration and barely controlled rage.

Some thought his temper better controlled this year than last, but they knew little about what he did in private. The Half-Blood Princes' spells he'd practiced with Ron, the few that Hermione had seen, they were only the beginning. Almost as important as the Prince's own creations were the spells the Prince mentioned in the margins, and the books he recommended.

Harry's Invisibility Cloak meant that he was invisible to prying eyes as he tore through the books in the library, looking for certain spells the Prince told him of. A bit of emphasis on the right syllable of a charm Herbologists used to use to squeeze sap out of a vine, if used on a person, squeezed the blood into a small area, and caused massive swelling, and eventual necrosis; the Prince even claimed that Madam Pomfrey couldn't treat it well, and that some of the victims had lost limbs because of it. Of course, were the charm used on someone's neck…

Even better was a "Potions mishap" that turned a typical witch's facial cream into something that ate away the flesh it was applied to. Harry had summoned a bit of the cream from the girls' dormitory, and the modified cake was in the schoolbag he'd grabbed on his way out of the common room.

It was time for him to release his anger. The frustration he felt at Hermione's constant nagging, the difficulty he had with nonverbal spells – soon, none of it would matter.

"Oof!" The girl yelled as she collided with him. On the ground lay Susan Bones, whose bag and purse had dropped onto the floor with the collision.

Yes, she would do nicely.

"_Stupefy._" Harry intoned calmly. Susan immediately collapsed like a limp noodle, and Harry smirked with excitement as he whispered, "_Mobilicorpus_." And her body rose as though it were on a stretcher.

Harry had determined, after five years of adventures, that he learned best by doing. He learned when he had to fight for his life, when he had to solve puzzles.

But he learned this year, that he also learned by killing – first, with a few nights spent in the Forbidden Forest. No one noticed a dead Acromantula, since they had a very short lifespan due to constant infighting, and if he killed anything else – a centaur, or maybe a unicorn – close enough to the Acromantulas, they would take care of the body, and no one would be the wiser.

But now, he longed for release of a different kind – Hermione's nagging and Ginny's hot and cold flirtation left him frustrated at females in particular, so tonight would be a new kind of experiment.

"Yes, you will do nicely," Harry said to the unconscious girl as he ran his hands along her body. The forbidden nature of what he was doing, the lack of consent, was like an aphrodisiac to Harry, and he was more turned on than he'd ever been before.

He quickly pulled out the Marauders' Map and found his way to an abandoned classroom.

"_Colloportus. Silencio. Muffliato. Cave Clango_." The last two spells that would ensure his privacy were gifted from the Half-Blood Prince. The last would set off an alarm, should anyone attempt to disturb him. He had his Invisibility Cloak for just such an event.

Susan was laying on the floor now, in a heap, since Harry abandoned his movement charm.

"_Petrificus Totalus_. _Enervate_." He said, intoning a few well-practiced spells.

"Wha?" The girl questioned dumbly. He had worked with her last year in the D.A., and knew she wouldn't win any awards for genius.

"Harry?" She asked frightfully, her eyes moving rapidly to try to take in the dark room. "What's going on?"

He stalked over to her again, his excitement risen with her consciousness, and lay beside her – though he had a Cushioning Charm for his comfort. He ran his finger fondly up her robe once more in a swirling motion, reaching her face. He twirled a strand of her strawberry hair idly.

"Hello, Susan." He whispered, close to her now.

The girl was terrified, and the sweet knowledge of that terror excited Harry even more.

"I have this problem, Susan. You're going to help me with it." Harry removed the fastenings from her robe and let it trap her arms behind her back. Her wand, in the pocket of the robe, was tossed irreverently across the room. She would have no need of that.

While robes were the only standard attire at Hogwarts and in many places underclothes would be all that was worn underneath, most everyone wore another layer to stave off the brisk Scottish weather – Susan wore shorts and a collared white shirt underneath her robe.

Harry gave an approving nod as he inspected her bare legs, and ran a hand up her belly to cup her breast, which he caressed and kneaded softly – this was the first opportunity he had to inspect a girl's breasts, after all, so he was naturally fascinated with them.

Growing tired of the clothing limited his access to Susan's person, Harry unceremoniously ripped off her shirt and pulled down her shorts. Looking right at Susan's face, though she had her eyes closed and tears ran down her face at the assault, he casually slipped his hand under Susan's lingerie, a green pair of matching bra and panties.

"Why Susan," Harry exclaimed excitedly, "You shaved in the shape of a heart?!"

He laughed in a bit of a cackle, and said, "Ah, you must have been wanting something special for Valentine's day. Well, I hope I won't disappoint!"

Harry loosened his own robes and took his cock out from his pants, stroking himself as he slipped into her most sensitive cavity and explored with his fingers.

Her lack of response was troubling, he decided. In a Full-Body Bind, she couldn't moan or squirm.

Luckily, the Half-Blood Prince had mentioned a spell that would suit his needs nicely – perhaps it had even been used years past for this same purpose!

"_Petrificus Diversus!_" Harry exclaimed vigorously. Sure enough, the Prince had come through once more. Susans arms snapped behind her back, thrusting her chest out most wonderfully on display, and her legs spread apart. Her torso and head were free to move, and she no longer had her mouth snapped shut.

"What the bloody _hell_ do you think you're doing?!" She screeched. Harry flinched at her obnoxious yell, and used yet another of the Prince's spells. "_Langlock,_" he said calmly. It was the perfect spell – her tongue was locked against the roof of her mouth, so she could still scream or moan, but couldn't talk. Harry was sure it would be much more satisfying than a simple Silencing spell.

"Now, Susan, let's get rid of all these extra clothes," Harry said, eying her body lewdly as he divested himself of his clothes.

"_Diffindo! Diffindo! Diffindo!_" Three Severing charms later, nothing was left of her bra or panties except for superficial cuts where the charm had gone slightly too deep. Harry had no qualms about this.

"Mmm," he said as he snacked a bit on her right breast, "You know, Susan, your breasts are quite marvelous. Who knew what those Hogwarts robes hid?" Harry chuckled again at his own wit and attempted to decipher what, exactly, Susan's whimpers or cries meant as he toyed her nipples with varying degrees of pressure – a sharp cry when he really dug in, he assumed, meant that she enjoyed it the most.

"Well," he said, stopping his stroking of his own cock; upon seeing this, Susan cried even harder, realizing what was about to happen, "I think it's time we took our relationship to the next level, Susan. If you disagree, feel free to bitch and moan about it!"

Susan only whimpered and cried harder, occasionally attempting to wriggle free.

"You know, all that wiggling just does wonderful things to you, my dear," Harry said with a smirk.

He finally lay on top of her, kissing her neck roughly as he looked her in the eyes.

He aligned his dick and thrust harshly and deeply within her, taking her virginity all at once, and continued thrusting, ignoring her louder cries of objection.

Harry wrapped his arms around her in a macabre imitation of love-making, thrusting harder as he grew closer to climax.

"Ah!" he said as he finally came, wiggling around inside of Susan as he looked her in the eyes and laughed.

"You know, Susan, that was great. I don't know what I'd have killed if I hadn't done that, I was so frustrated." He said, putting his clothes back on.

"And do you know what the best part is, Susan?" She had fear in her eyes once more, not sure what was going to happen.

"I can do this a thousand times, and it'll always seem like the first, to you…_Finite Incantatem_." The myriad of spells holding the girl hostage broke at once, and she lunged at Harry, screaming viciously.

"_Obliviate_." He said calmly. Susan collapsed in a heap of confusion on the ground, unaware of where she was or why she was naked.

She heard only the slam of a door, as someone left.

**A/N:** Thanks for sticking with me to the end! I appreciate all reviews, and may be adding to this as I toss away more ideas to the junk pile.


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